Dug Out is a label devoted to reggae reissues, run by Honest Jon's co-owner Mark Ainley and Mark Ernestus (Basic Channel, Main Street, Maurizio). Dug Out will be centered on high-quality vinyl reissues, especially from the digital era. Restoration will be done at Abbey Road Studio; mastering at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, by its co-owner, CGB; and the records will be manufactured at Pallas.
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viewing 1 To 24 of 24 items
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10"
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DO GC001-EP
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First time out for this wildly raw version of the Pablo master-rhythm, shot through with other-worldly incantation. Surely, that's Family Man stalking a sunken cavern, and his bro battering all seven shades out of his drum-kit, like Meters on fire. Could be Chinna on guitar, glazed and violent. Producer Gussie Clarke says Theophilus 'Easy Snappin' Beckford is playing piano, with the front removed so he can strum the strings (like he finally snapped). The mixing rears up right in your face. Transferred from acetate - fuss-pots don't grumble, just be humble. The flip brings unmissable alternates from Gussie's tape-room.
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7"
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DO DSR7380-EP
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Tear-away sufferers anthem, roaring out of the blocks in 1989. Piercing, unforgettable song-writing by the Tetrack spar - jam-packed with anecdote, observation and warning - over a sick, break-neck, apocalyptic rhythm, with an ace dub. A digi classic.
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7"
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DO BG001-EP
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Just like cream-of-the-crop digi-Tubbys. From Gregory Isaacs's New Dance album sessions in 1988, with the Firehouse Crew. Mixed by Leroy 'Fatman' Thompson - formerly apprenticed to the King, en route to Jammys - and produced by Bunny Gemini and Tristan Palma. Gregory is desolate and compelling... and the dub is murder.
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12"
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DO GC002-EP
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Masterful Gregory Isaacs from 1997, sounding spooked and hunted over a juddering, propulsive Music Works rhythm, fulgent and full-on, with deep, pounding bass, clattering percussion, parping horns, classy backing vocals and harp starbursts... top-notch Gussies. Two extended vocal versions, and two dubs, all quite different. Bimmety bim bim.
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7"
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DO MICCAN002-EP
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Magnificent nyabinghi roots warning. The one-and-only Eric Frater is drafted in from Studio One, playing killer rhythm guitar (with Chinna on lead); and likewise Dennis Ferron - Jah D - leads the way with his spiritualized keyboard-work, keening between jazz and soul. Puma from Black Uhuru sings. Geoffrey Chung expertly pulls in the bass drum and doubled-up fundas and repetas. The dub in particular is stunning - thumping, trenchant and brooding, so steeply dread and haunted it almost trips over its sense of yawning silence and doom.
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7"
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DO FD5003-EP
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In the early '70s, Leroy "Mabrak" Mattis, a student at Howard University, joined a drum and dance group called Contact Africa, and instructor Kojo Fosu introduced him to the talking drum. Back home in Jamaica, "I bumped into an old friend, Bim Sherman. He knew I was a musician, and he was going to King Tubby's studio that day. I tagged along." With brilliant guitar instead of horns, here is a different version of the rhythm Bim used for "Love Forever." The same as on Mabrak's 1976 Drum Talk LP (DO JS005-LP), but a little brighter and more dynamic, and bringing a deep, unmissable Tubbys dub.
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LP
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DO JS005-LP
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Leroy Mattis's first drum was a plastic butter container. "My mother wouldn't buy me a drum because back then the situation in Jamaica was very tense... In 1960 Jamaica was still an English colony, and the drum is a roots instrument." Tommy McCook was living two doors down; during the first years of The Skatalites, Mattis would practice there. In 1970 he was National Junior Drumming Champion, with Count Ossie winning overall; four years later his ensemble battled in the Senior finals with the drummers of The Light of Saba. "Our group was initially called Genesis, it was a 7-piece drum group, but I changed the name to Mabrak, which means Thunder in Amharic. We knew that we were coming with a heavy sound." Experiments in percussion, in the middle of the night at Harry J's -- funky versions of rhythms like "Curly Locks," "Too Late to Turn Back Now," and "Fattie Fattie," led by talking drums -- beautifully mixed by King Tubby, who couldn't believe his ears. Originally released in 1976, in paper inners only. Smartly sleeved in quintessential Dug Out-style this time around -- with an insert, including a recent interview with Mabrak.
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7"
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DO INT001EP
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Originally released in 1983 by the Integrity Record label in Jamaica. Legendary, killer roots. An austere, implacable, heavier-than-lead one-away, with a severe dub. Even their bass bins shall tremble and be in anguish.
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7"
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DO PR001-EP
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2021 repress. Utterly inspired, gale-force ranting pon a flashin' TR-909 from Tiger. The head-on, 1988 collision of harder-than-hard-core dancehall and ultra-raw Detroit techno. Soundboy will soil his winceyette onesie.
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CD
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DO ADM080CD
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Basic Replay presents another Black Victory label classic missing-in-action, Nitty Gritty's 1987 album General Penitentiary. With superb rhythms and killer dubs, this album is a dream combination of Studio One and Bullwackies musicians, with the young sing-jay already at the top of his game. Nitty Gritty: the name alone tells you that he was rough and tough. Having survived many a hard time in the ghetto, he came forward on General Penitentiary in his own strong original style.
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LP
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DO ADM080LP
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12"
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DO ADM071EP
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2011 release, restocked, new lower pricing. Tenor Saw gets full superstar treatment from the best in the business, with a tremendous, chunky, runaway rhythm, dominated by Bagga's roiling bass, burning horns and dubwise, lightning-clap percussion. Not to mention a full-color picture-sleeve, replicated by Dug Out.
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12"
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DO ADM084EP
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Driving Shaka murder, fury and yearning coiled into an ideal marriage of digital and old-school music-making. Bagga Walker and a drum-machine tear up the dub. Complete with rare, ebullient Colarman toast.
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CD
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DO ADM070CD
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2016 restock. Moving between New York and Kingston, Jamaica, in the mid-1980s, the revered Black Victory label was a perfect storm, crossing the sainted ranks and deep lineages of Studio One and Bullwackies, together with the first, most celebrated strikes of the digital revolution in reggae. The musicians -- for the JA recordings presented as The Studio One Band, in NYC as the Black Roots Players -- included Brentford Road legends like bassist Bagga Walker and keyboardist Pablove Black, alongside White Plains Road aces like sax-man Jerry Johnson and percussionist Ras Menilik. The studios were Bullwackies, in the Bronx, where the genius Lloyd Barnes produced Tempo Explosion with Sugar Minott, and Music Mountain, in Stony Hill, Kingston, where David Rowan was the recordist, and the heavyweight Crucial Bunny (from Channel One) mixed the Nitty Gritty LP, General Penitentiary. Business was run from two New York record shops: Madison Records at 125th Street in Harlem, and Wackies. Dancehall savior of Studio One and co-architect of Black Victory, Wackies stalwart Minott himself takes the mic, kicking off the imperious Tempo Explosion version-excursion. Studio One veteran Willie Williams turns in one of his masterworks, a pile-driving Shaka murder, with a deejay cut by newcomer Colorman. Throughout Black Victory, the musicianship and dubwise production magnificently rides the cusp between analog and digital, with masterful live performances and swinging drum programs seamlessly combined. This is an album containing eight versions on King Tubby's "Tempo" rhythm, originally released in 1985 and produced by Bullwackie and Sugar Minott. Sleeve art by design by Wackies artist Leslie Moore. Other artists featured include: Chris Wayne, Ras Menilik DaCosta, Jerry Johnson and Black Roots Players.
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12"
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DO ADM095EP
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Limited restock. Dancehall savior of Studio One, and co-architect of Black Victory, Wackies stalwart Sugar Minott himself takes the mic. The single "Sheriff John Brown" is a driving sufferer's cliffhanger about bent cops and going on the run. Included here also is another version and a "Brown Dub."
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12"
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DO RI003EP
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2021 repress. Rougher than rough Roots Radics cut from 1982, fired up with wild effects, murderous dubbing, and live, jostling microphone interplay; and with an excoriating version. Who come fe mash it, man, them can't stand a chance, cah tell you Billy Boyo and Little John in a the dance, and any way we come we make you jump and prance... So tell me what you want to be.
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10"
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DO VS003EP
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Brilliant, icy, rude-boy minimalism from Naphtali, ticking and clopping out of the Vibes Sounds studio on Mayville Road, Leytonstone, East London, in 1987. Blacka at the controls, Jah Warrior the apprentice dentist.
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7"
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DO PO8218
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2010 release, restocked: new lower pricing. Careening from the Black Sublime of Dadawah to the, er, Foxy Brown of Jennifer Hylton, Dug Out lets off this early-'90s r'n'b-tipped torpedo, recorded by Lloyd Pickout Dennis at Dynamic, with the Firehouse Crew -- George programming drums, Danny the bass, and Wrong Move the other keys.
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CD
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DO XYZ004CD
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2021 restock. Dark, hypnotic, tripping nyabinghi from 1974. Led by Jamaican Rastafarian singing hand-drummer Ras Michael over four extended excursions, the music is organic, sublime and expansive, grounation drums and bass-heavy (with no rhythm guitar; rather, Willie Lindo brilliantly improvising a kind of dazed blues). Lloyd Charmers and Federal Studios engineer George Raymond stayed up all night after the session to mix the recording, opening out the enraptured mood into echoing space, adding sparse, startling effects to the keyboards. At no cost to its deep spirituality, this is the closest reggae comes to psychedelia. Previously squandered in an incongruous 2-for-1 reissue, now lovingly returned to its original, singular glory at Abbey Road.
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LP
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DO XYZ004LP
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LP version. Dark, hypnotic, tripping nyabinghi from 1974. Led by Jamaican Rastafarian singing hand-drummer Ras Michael over four extended excursions, the music is organic, sublime and expansive, grounation drums and bass-heavy (with no rhythm guitar; rather, Willie Lindo brilliantly improvising a kind of dazed blues). Lloyd Charmers and Federal Studios engineer George Raymond stayed up all night after the session to mix the recording, opening out the enraptured mood into echoing space, adding sparse, startling effects to the keyboards. At no cost to its deep spirituality, this is the closest reggae comes to psychedelia. Previously squandered in an incongruous 2-for-1 reissue, now lovingly returned to its original, singular glory at Abbey Road. Pressed on super-fly vinyl and housed in new standard-printed sleeves.
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7"
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DO JW702
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A collaboration between Steve Mosco and Dougie Conscious, this was originally released in 1996, in the early days of Steve's London‐based Jah Warrior label. With one eye on the past, this captures UK roots sound‐system vibes, like magic in a bottle; the other on the future, it's a prophecy of dubstep. The music is live and direct, in‐session; grooving and intense, dense and massive; swirling, sizzling and echoing, with writhing, junglist bass.
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7"
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DO DS1
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A stinging, thumping, futuristic soundboy frightener, terrible and remorseless, this was originally brandished by JA producer Dennis "Star" Hayles in 1989, caged in a label sampler. Mid‐decade, Anthony Redrose had a smash hit for King Tubby with an immortal song about a rhythm with fierce tempo; by now it has mutated into a killing machine, controls set to vaporize all zinc pan, super‐charged with the shock treatment of all dibbi dibbi.
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12"
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DO KK3-EP
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2017 repress. This record follows on from the string of mid-'80s hits for Firehouse, Jammy's, Ujama and co, for which Dennis Thomas aka King Kong is most celebrated. Originally released in 1988 as a tribute to his friend Tenor Saw, killed that year in suspicious circumstances, it came as a 12" on Thomas' own Concious Music label, and as a 7" (without "Try Not I") on Jah All Mighty in New York. This is the great dancehall singer at his most powerful. Both vocals come with dubs, and the rhythm is driving, hard and sombre, with nervous, grubbing synths, ringing claps, and a lethal bass-line. Dug Out is devoted to reggae reissues, run by Mark Ainley and Mark Ernestus. Restoration done at Abbey Road Studio, mastering at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin.
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7"
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DO UP4190
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2010 release, restocked: new lower pricing. Raw, stripped funk from the Black Ark, charged with atmosphere and aura. Done over as Zen tutelage, no doubt inspired by Michael Rose's spar Niney, this is the Final Weapon rhythm -- that signature cowbell, tough, scrubby guitar, bass bubbling deep in the pocket, and the Upsetters mixing live on the spot. Adrian Sherwood revisited the song with Ari Up -- but here is the hortical piece.
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