Send "Lee Scratch Perry " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Lee “Scratch” Perry turned 75 this year. He has been part of reggae music literally for as long as reggae music has existed. His huge influence on reggae, and dub especially, as producer and artist, is undeniable. For the past couple decades, though, Perry has been more of a curiosity than a musician in the traditional sense.From claiming that Island Records’ Chris Blackwell is a “vampire” to claiming to be an extra-terrestrial himself, Perry’s outrageous, though occasionally inspired, non-sequiturs have marked his post-1970s career. The music has mainly come down to a series of well-known collaborators. Perry’s albums have been overseen by dub maestros Adrian Sherwood and Mad Professor, and Scientist. He has also worked with the Beastie Boys, the Swiss experimental techno-pop band Yello and the Austrian dub collective Dubblestandart. He’s even appeared on record with film director David Lynch. The one constant throughout has been Perry’s bizarre orating, made all the more endearing by his unaffected, grandpa-like croak. Perry’s longevity in a Jamaican reggae world with a lower-than-average life expectancy is nothing short of extraordinary, but when was the last time you could honestly say you were excited about a new Perry album? The not-so-subtly-titled Rise Again aims to change that. What hasn’t changed is the focus on high-profile collaborators. Only now there are more of them. Overseeing, producing, and co-arranging the project is veteran dub/psychedelic artist Bill Laswell. The collaboration makes so much sense it’s surprising to realize Laswell and Perry haven’t teamed up before. To sweeten the pot, Laswell has brought in legends like drummer Sly Dunbar and P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and relative fresh faces such as Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio. It’s a noble effort, and it does result in some of Perry’s most effective work in years. Where and how exactly Perry fits in, however, is up for debate....full text |
| Blogcritics |
| Lee “Scratch” Perry has been a prime mover in reggae music since the birth of the genre. First as a talent scout who put together the original Wailers, then as a producer, and finally as a recording artist in his own right, “Scratch” has been there through it all. What he may best be known for are his dub excursions, which positively reek of sacrament yet sound great to even the uninitiated. His latest release is titled Rise Again, and is a collaboration with Bill Laswell. Laswell’s studio adventures with his group Material have a lot in common with what Perry has come to be known for, and the two work well together. There are also a load of guest appearances on the album, including those by Sly Dunbar, Bernie Worrell, and Tunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio. The disc opens up with “Higher Level,” which is vintage Lee “Scratch” Perry reggae/dub. Laswell’s influence is first felt on the following track, “Scratch Message.” His Material-esque manipulations blend well with what Perry is up to, and the song is one of the highlights of the record. There are limits to the effectiveness of the pairing, however, which is probably to be expected. There are times when Laswell’s atmospherics overwhelm the more organic sounds of Perry, though, and this is where I had some difficulty. “Rise Again” and “Dancehall Kung Fu” are the two biggest examples of this, although Laswell fans may find these tracks to be the strongest of all. The lyrics of “Dancehall Kung Fu” are hilarious, by the way....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| When people who smoke ganja all day consider you strange, you may be a little strange. Or, to put it another way, the myth of the mad genius has been well worn at least since the Romantics (not to mention a source of frustration for those who'd like to see a realistic approach to mental illness); but sometimes a figure comes along who reminds us of the reason for the existence of a particular trope, and Lee "Scratch" Perry is just such a figure. Like many oddball savants, his output has never been less than patchy, but the high points (and I mean high points, though Perry is now sober) loft on incense-fumed clouds to such an exalted plane that they continue to sustain the legend as it rises from misfires and passes dead-ends. Identifying the apex of Perry's output would take an infinite number of reggae obsessives typing on infinite discussion boards for an infinite amount of time, but personally I'll plump for: Family: his production work for others; Genus: the 1970s; Species: The Congos (indeed, the refrain from The Congos' "Can't Come In" is revived here on "Scratch Message"). Many would suggest that one of Perry's foibles — apart from burning down the legendary Black Ark Studio — has been to slather too much of his later work with his own meandering thoughts — always interestingly bizarre, but often less than vital — and to fail to exercise quality control over his oeuvre. The first of these flaws is not in evidence here, but the second… well, you'll have to wait. But, Flaws?, I hear you ask? On an album not only from the venerable Scratch, now in his mid-70s, but also featuring Renaissance bassman Bill Laswell, dub icon Sly Dunbar, P-Funkster Bernie Worrell, TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, and the haunting vocals of Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw? Gentle reader, I was as excited as you to hear a new work from the dub master, and, appropriately, it upsets me to tell you that there is a deeply impressive EP to be found on this album. The opening half features one killer bassline after another over hypnotically "troubled rhythms" (as Dick Hebdige put it), horns and keyboards just hinting at melancholy, while Perry murmurs (occasionally breaking into a line of song) in a tone in which the warlike and sexual arrogance of earlier personae has given way to a rough-edged yet childlike singsong both unique and mesmerizing. It's impossible not to feel a great deal of affection for such an iconic, eccentric figure. The lyrical concerns are for the most part what one would expect of the Rastafari tradition, that is, Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, and Biblical quotations set in a framework of pride, resistance, and pan-African diasporic concerns: "a spectacular resolution of the material contradictions which oppress and define the West Indian community" (Hebdige again). But Perry brings to these themes his own inimitable approach, transforming them into something just a little stranger than the fundamentalist literalism so often associated with apocalyptic prophecy. Free association (or should that be 'Lee dissociation'?), for example, brings to light the echoes of postcolonial resistance: "I conquer death/ I conquer Beth/ I conquer Elizabeth/ I conquer Prince Charles." Haile Selassie rises not only from the dead, but out of Scratch's own head, prefiguring the way in which the psyche of the believer (and not only the religious believer) shapes reality such that the source of the vision is invisible to the witness....full text |
Lee Scratch Perry lyrics
|
| |||||||
