 
Even Homer nodded and in this case the great Steve Barrow seems to have lost the plot. There are already a couple of compilations of Blood & Fire dub tracks and this is a third one. Don't let the Rough Guide name fool you: it's all licensed from Blood & Fire, and should be called "King Tubby's Roots of Dub," because there's only a narrow area of early 70s Dub on offer here. There are a few bright moments: the opening cut has the famous "leave the studio" discussion of Scotty reworked by ET (Errol Thompson). Prince Phillip sounds eerily like Horace Andy on a reworking of "Satta," the Abyssinians classic rhythm, recut by Aggrovators. The Congos check in with "Noah sugar pan," a masterpiece from their immortal "Heart of the Congos" produced by Lee Perry. But is there anyone who doesn't already have the Lee Perry or enough King Tubby dubby albums in their collection? Barrow's old label, Trojan, put out the best King Tubby collection: KING TUBBY'S SPECIAL 1973-6. Their subsidiary Attack Records put out a couple of good King Tubby compilations also. The Duchess got mad when I put this on and got into the bath (I love dub in the tub): the sameness of it really irked her (it does go on and on and, well, on) and she forwarded it a few times before taking it off. They could have obviated the monotony by fast-forwarding to Dennis Bovell and Adrian Sherwood and shown the evolution of dub to today. Check out one of the good Blood & Fire comps instead: DUB GONE CRAZY (The Evolution of Dub at King Tubby's 1975-9) or Keith Hudson's PICK A DUB . -- Alastair Johnston
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Rough
Guide to Dub