Previously on dubplate only, this legendary UK soundsystem weapon was produced by Sly And Robbie at Maxfield Avenue in the early eighties, with (perhaps) the Mighty Travellers at the microphone. Chasmic, head-spinning. Pure murder.

Heavy, chilling Channel One.
Horace is in deep; jittery and urgent. Sly is surgically trigger-happy.
Killer.

B/w Black Uhuru, Sun Is Shining.

‘Previously unreleased recordings made over several nights of the Wailers’ West London residency in June 1976, during their Rastaman Vibration tour. Highlights include a transcendent version of Roots, Rock, Reggae, a rarely-performed Bend Down Low, an extended version of Crazy Baldhead, and a thirty-minute encore that incorporates a twelve-minute Get Up, Stand Up.’

A four-tracker nodding to the Revolutionaries’ late-seventies instrumental EPs out of Maxfield Avenue.
A double whammy of knockout dubs.
First, a head-turning brace for all darker-than-blue massive. A down-to-the-bone version of Pam Hall’s haunted Lovers take on The Stylistics’ Children of the Night; and the startling dub of Junior Moore’s lovely cover of The Isley Brothers’ Voyage to Atlantis. In both the scraps of singing are deadly.
Then two evilous dubs of classic Hopeton Lewis roots, saturated in classic Channel One hard-grooving intensity. Like the opener, never released before now.

Gorgeous roots. Seemingly sardonic and above-it-all but utterly trenchant. All the singing is sublime, including the back-up. The gentle nyabinghi percussion and keyboard stabs are beautifully restrained, as Sylvan Morris brings his genius to the mix. Same dub as the original 45. A stone classic. We could listen for days.
Plus the 12 Tribes launch a two-headed-shark attack on the flip, featuring maestro Pablove Black. No less than an instrumental cut to George Beaufort’s insurgent Reaching Our Goal, and a sick synth excursion on the revered Black Star Liner rhythm.

Over to Digikiller…
‘Howard ‘Sir Tommy’ Mapp is one of the original guard of New York sound men, playing sound system since 1974. Around a decade after that, he began producing for his newly formed label of the same name. Later in the 1990s he established his own studio, which became a hub of the city’s dancehall scene. In true independent fashion, Tommy covered nearly every aspect of the reggae business himself, like Wackie’s, Jah Life and Philip Smart. We’re proud to finally present the first reissue of the early gems in Tommy’s catalogue and make some more classic New York reggae accessible again. So what better to start with than a new compilation, 100% heaters, culled from long unavailable singles and albums. We cannot recommend this record enough, as Tommy’s early production output mainly falls in two of our most beloved categories — the mid ‘80s sound of Channel 1 as played by the Gifted Roots Band, and the late ‘80s early digital sound. This LP is packed with prime cuts of just such music. Absolutely essential stuff for 1980s reggae heads.’