The Bristol Reggae Explosion Vol 2 – The 80′s

Released 17th October 2011

Following the critical and commercial success of “The Bristol Reggae Explosion 1978 – 1983” Bristol Archive Records have dug even deeper into the city’s reggae heritage for the follow-up, “Bristol Reggae Explosion Volume 2 – The 1980s”. This time we continue our quest not only with a selection of rarities, but with several tracks that have never been previously released, by popular demand Volume 2 also comes with greater dub content.

Bristol’s top roots exponents Black Roots feature once more, “The Father” is a prime example of their early roots style. Whilst “Pin In The Ocean” shows the later more commercial sound they adopted in collaboration with the Mad Professor, both tracks can also be found on the label’s “Black Roots The Reggae Singles Anthology”, a career spanning overview.

Bunny Marrett wrote Black Roots’ “Bristol Rock”, the opening track on Volume 1 so it’s only appropriate and with great pleasure that we include his sole vinyl outing, the very scarce “Times Are Getting Harder”, a great slice of UK roots. When it comes to scarcity there were reputedly just 200 copies pressed of “Robin Hoods Of The Ghetto” by Cool Runnings, we believe it deserves a much wider audience.

The Radicals, 3-D Production and Joshua Moses will be familiar to those who have Volume 1 and return with more of the same. The Joshua Moses track is previously unreleased and appears here thanks to the detective work of Mike Darby. Another unreleased track we’ve managed to uncover is Alfred McIntosh’s “Wicked Dub” a 7 minute workout that helps give this release a greater dub flavour.

The mid part of the decade is represented by Zapp Stereo’s appropriately titled “Way Out West” and Lord John Hutchinson’s “Little Eyes”. Both tracks are previously unreleased. The albums closing track is Dan Ratchett’s “Raggamuffin Girl”. Recorded in 1989 it perfectly sums up the way Reggae music started to change direction. Dan was an ever present part of the Bristol scene in the late eighties and nineties and hopefully this will be the first of many tracks we get to license for future releases.

Rather than discuss all the tracks in detail we’ve left a few surprises for the listener to discover for themselves, but you can be sure that this release builds on the strengths of Volume 1 and explores the Bristol scene in far more depth. Hopefully it shows how the live, band based scene at the start of the decade evolved to be more solo artist based a few years later. This sowed the seeds for the explosion in studio based production companies that were just around the corner, the two volumes compliment each other perfectly, roll on Volume 3!

Vinyl

Side One

1. “Rise Up” Joshua Moses
2. “Times Are Getting harder” Bunny Marrett
3. “Twelve Tribes” Zion Band
4. “Robin Hoods Of the Ghetto” Cool Runnings

Side Two

1. “Re-Arrange (Version)” 3-D Production
2. “Wicked Dub” Alfred McIntosh
3. “Ah It (Dub” Alfred McIntosh
4. “Re-Action” Restriction

CD

1. Joshua Moses Rise Up (Joshua Moses 1983) (p) Copyright Control 1983
2. Bunny Marrett Times Are Getting Harder (Bunny Marrett 1980) (P) Unitone Publishing 1980
3. Alfred McIntosh Wicked Men (Dub) (McIntosh/Talisman 1983) (p) Copyright Control 1983
4. Zion Band Twelve Tribes (Reynold Duncan 1982) (p) Unitone Publishing 1982
5. 3-D Production Re-Arrange (Version) (Ronald Green 1980) (p) Third Kind Music 1980
6. Alfred McIntosh Ah It Dis (Dub) (McIntosh/Talisman 1983) (p) Copyright Control 1983
7. Zapp Stereo Way Out West (Snow/Palaste 1984) (p) Copyright Control 1984
8. Restriction Re-Action (Restriction 1983) (p) Unitone Publishing 1983
9. Cool Runnings Robin Hoods Of The Ghetto (Condover/Minott 1983) (p) Unitone Publishing 1983
10. Black Roots The Father (Black Roots 1981) (p) Nubian Publishing 1981
11. Dennis McCalla aka Dallas Peacemaker (Dennis McCalla) (p) Unitone Publishing 1984
12. Black Roots Pin In The Ocean (Black Roots 1987) (p) Nubian Publishing 1987
13. The Radicals Time Out (John Carley 1980) (p) Copyright Control 1980
14. Lord John Hutchinson Little Eyes (Hutchinson/Harris 1986) (p) Copyright Control 1986
15. Dan Ratchett and Teknikal Honours Raggamuffin Girl (Dan Ratchett 1989) (p) Freshblood Organisation 1989

ARTIST: V/A
TITLE: Bristol Reggae Explosion Volume 2 – The 1980s.
FORMAT: Format : CD and Limited Edition 8 Track Vinyl with insert
LABEL: Bristol Archive Records
DISTRIBUTION: Shellshock
CAT NO: ARC228CD and ARC228V
RELEASE DATE: 17th October 2011
WEBSITE: www.bristolarchiverecords.com
CONTACT: Mike Darby, E: mike@bristolarchivercords.com T: 07885 498 402
PRESS CONTACT: Garry Hutchinson, E : garry.hutchinson@s-a-n.co.uk T: 01429280582

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