There’s no such thing as an album that’s a perfect 10 – but there those that are one notch below. The 9’s is an occasional series which explores some of those records.
Released: 1976
About
Not many producers can honestly claim to changing the face of music in their back garden, but when Lee “Scratch” Perry assembled the Black Ark studio at the rear of his Kingston house in 1973 he created an environment that hummed with alchemical force. The Upsetters – a rotating cast of elite session musicians – were joined on Super Ape by the audio ghosts that haunted Black Ark, layer upon layer of spectral tape hiss, cavernous reverb and sonic tics galore.
Why a 9?
Super Ape was no-one off product of luck; by the time of it’s release Black Ark as a facility had already birthed albums by King Tubby and Max Romeo, along with Perry’s own landmark Blackboard Jungle Dub. It would go on to create an unsurpassable legacy, but at the time the small contemporary audience were invited to decode the results as well as try to dance, each left guessing which original had been so deeply stylised. With a maverick at the peak of his powers at the controls, even now it retains an undefinable aura few if any could, or have, recreated since.
Why Is It Important?
Unfashionable to say yes, but there’s a strong argument that the culturally frowned upon seventies were in fact responsible for the musical bedrock of what many of us listen to still today, whether that be what’s descended from Kraftwerk, post-punk, Krautrock, disco or the nascent beginnings of hip hop. In dub’s case the studio-as-instrument aesthetic by pioneered by a cabal of like minded producers led by Perry and King Tubby went on to directly influence the mainstream from The Clash to Massive Attack and remains a dominant sonic hallmark fifty years later.
You Should Listen To
Dread Lion, Zion’s Blood, Super Ape, Curly Dub
The Voice Of Unreason 