Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires
(Greensleeves)
Counting the number of essential dub albums doesn't require taking one's shoes and socks off. But whichever hand begins the tally, make sure it includes this 1981 LP from King Tubby's apprentice Scientist (aka Hopeton Brown).
Amidst a series of concept dub records all seemingly wrapped around some of Scientist's favorite things (... Meets the Space Invaders, ... Wins the World Cup, etc.) the young studio wizard put out this horror-themed collection.
The 10 tracks are drastically remixed from source material provided by The Roots Radics, Scientist's frequent collaborators. Like King Tubby, Scientist often strips away all other instruments save the drums and bass, letting guitar and horns slide in and out of the mix like distant orbiting bodies.But unlike his mentor's humid, tropical dubs or Lee "Scratch" Perry's abstract psychedelic versions, Scientist's work has a cold detachment to it. So his creature-feature theme makes perfect sense.
Scientist relies on reverb as much as delay and echo, and the expected speaker-rattling bass sometimes sounds compressed ("The Voodoo Curse"). In "The Corpse Rises" the bass staggers into the song from a distance, a thrilling trick that builds anticipation for the moment when it actually takes over the mix.
The between song declarations ("I want blood!" "This is the mummy's curse") expose the glee of a student set loose in the laboratory -- Scientist cut most of his early material in Tubby's studio -- and add much to the B-movie feel of it all.
He kills the mood once at the start of "The Mummy's Shroud" by letting some bird chirps into the track, and essentially flips on the lights by the last two cuts. "Plauge of Zombies" has positive-vibe Rasta vocals and "Ghost of Frankenstein" seems to be a version of lover's rock.
Perhaps those are the happy ending to Scientist's mini monsterfest?
Reference material: Augustus Pablo's desolate, Near East-tinged collaborations with King Tubby clearly showed Scientist the potential of dub. There are even elements of garage rock twang and Velvet Underground spaciousness.
