I got loads of great stuff for my birthday. Thank you! Still wading though it, to be honest. Particularly nice to get a huge pile of books, records and CDs, as I’m having two months off buying any so I can pay for the holiday. More on the new stuff later.

Got in last night and threw down the following:

Derek Lara – Time So Hard (Guiding Star repress 7″, 2002)

“If you try to make in life, they will try to mash you down, down – to the ground”

This came out on the same label as the repress of Prince Alla’s “Their Reward” and I’d overlooked it because the Alla tune is such a stone cold killer. My mistake – this is excellent late 70s stuff (at least I’m guessing it is because it has those peeoooow peeoooow syndrum noises on it which were popular for about 10 minutes at the end of the decade). Serious Shaka-esque roots.

Palmer Brothers – Step It Out of Babylon (Hawkeye 7″ repress)

Apparently the Palmer Brothers were also known as Junior Ross and The Spear (who have a re-release out on Blood & Fire I am gagging for). There’s a Prince Alla connection here as well because I think he was part of the group for a while. Again, this is late 70s, early 80s biz (the dub is by the Roots Radics) and is a lovely bit of plaintiff roots. The producer credit goes to Brent Dowe, who is famous for singing possibly one of my favourite tunes ever “Way Down In Babylon” for Lee Perry – indeed, a tune so good that it was adopted as the anthem for the rasta Twelve Tribes organisation.

Jolly Brothers – Conscious Man (Magnum 7″ 1977)

A proper release with a small hole! Bizarrely credited as being “produced and arranged by Tony J” when the entire essence of the record screams Black Ark era Lee Perry. Swirly reverb and nice vocal harmonies. The lyrics are in stark contrast to bashment – a message for rastas about unrequited love:

“You’ve got to be a conscious man/When you fall in love/
when you fall in love/with someone/who doesn’t love you/
look into yourself my friend/try to get wise/
and be a conscious man/when you fall in love”

Sort of verges on misogyny, but I suppose a lot of us have had those dark moments when things just don’t work out:

“Solomon was wise/but he never learned the secret/of a woman
Samson was strong/but deceived/oh yeah/by a woman”

Wicked dub by comrade Scratch as well. But I didn’t play that, because I had to go to bed.