Clail, Gary -sound System-
Electric Skies/twisted Love Dub (10")(rsd)
10" Vinyl - (500) copies Limited Edition cut at 33rpm Emerging from Bristol's early post-punk scene, back in the eighties one-time roofer Gary Clail began to make musical waves with his white-boy toasting over the dub splendours of the On-U Sound reggae stable as a warm-up at their live shows. With his strong Bristol burr and ragamuffin stage presence, Gary has remained a force of nature ever since. He has a polemical street passion that remains undiminished and his socially conscious pronouncements of dissent are both unsettling and yet sometimes extremely funny. His music is uncompromising, political, often dark but also extremely danceable. This double A-side is the result of a series of sessions that took place throughout 2017, when Gary collaborated with producer Mike Bennett, whose credits include Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, The Specials, The Fall and Shane McGowan. Gary's idiosyncratic On-U Sound System production touches provide the cornerstone to this new track, especially in the enveloping dub sections where veteran multi-instrumentalist Tony Wrafter brings brass and flute parts that add both depth and drama to the piece. Electric Skies is in three movements and starts off as an industrial workout before morphing into classical-orientated psychedelia, then culminating in a heavy bass-orientated dub. Lyrically, Gary is on top form, sending up conspiracy theories about mind-altering chem trails, drones and illuminati. The second track, Twisted Love (Dub), witnesses Gary's eerie vocals filtered through space echo sounds against a dark, dub-orientated groove provided by Tony Wrafter, again with Mike Bennett and also collaborator Alan Keary, who has worked together with the likes of Dillinger, John Cooper Clarke and Intastella.