Album Review : Roots Manuva - Duppy Writer
- Written by David Lichfield
Never shy of what the dub purists know as 'versioning', Duppy Writer is Roots Manuva's third full-length remix album, following 2002's 'Dub Come Save Me' and 2006's 'Alternately Deep'. These alternative collections have often housed his most experimental work, concentrating on bass and sculpting strange landscapes of smoke-filled sound, spring reverbs and feedback, with vocals reduced to distant utterances - strange for a vocalist whose primary strengths are his lyrics - until you realise many of these dubs have been produced by Roots himself, under the name Lord Gosh. This time the UK rap veteran has handed over an abundance of underrated tracks from each of his four studio albums over to Wrongtom, the South London DJ and producer whose clients include Trojan Records, Kid Koala and Hard-Fi. After his work on Roots' last bonus CD, 'Slime And Version', he was soon asked to assemble a full-length album, his directions being a re-imagining of the material as long-lost original versions from a bygone era. Fittingly, the album artwork was created by Tony McDermott, who concocted the sleeves for many iconic Greensleeves releases.
Opening with the 'tropical shit' of 'Butterfly Crab Walk', a radical take on 2001's 'Hol' It Up', it soon becomes clear that whilst the words haven't been changed, the mood evokes far sunnier climes than that of the originals. The previously intense battlecry of 'Chin High' is transformed radically into 'Chin Up', Root's previously dramatic, tension-fuelled rhymes somewhat ill-fitting against a tipsy, carnival-esque soundscape. Rather than being his greatest hits reworked, it's an odd selection of early work, album tracks, outtakes ('Worl' A Mine', née 'This World Is Mine', the hidden track on 'Awfully Deep') and even reworkings of alternative versions - 'Dutty Rut', with long-time collaborator Ricky Ranking appears to be a new take on 'Colossal Insight (Jammer Remix & Revox)', first found on the b-side of that single. To an extent this works, breathing new life into material previous deemed inferior to sonically similar cuts.
There's time for a new track too, 'Jah Warriors', again featuring Ranking, a soulful, desolate affair incorporating an instantly memorable hook, evoking the melancholy at the heart of 'Slime and Reason' mixed with a rootsier, organic vibe - the entirity of Duppy Writer itself seemingly a love-letter to a genre which Roots has repeatedly returned to. It also allows him opportunity to incorporate reverberated, heavy washes of bass. Where 'Run Come Save Me' was noted for its beats and toughness, the last two studio albums have seemed somewhat gentler affairs - 'Awfully Deep' documented his supposed descent into mental illness with some quite poppy production values, despite his intention to avoid radio, and 'Slime And Reason' was the inevitable sequel to that. Taking the sadness and confusion of the previous record to an often starker, minimal place, it's immaculate electronic exorcises of sorrow ('Let The Spirit', 'It's Me, Oh Lord', 'The Show Must Be Gone') convinced in a way that the small carnival element of the album ('Again and Again', 'Buff Nuff') didn't.
So, it's tempting to think that, musically at least, this is the album Roots Manuva would have liked to have released 2 years ago, if he had been in the right mindset. We've heard him troubled, depressed, estranged, bitter, paranoid and introspective with some regularity over the past half-decade, and whilst the eccentricity has remained, some fleeting shows of lightheartedness have fallen short of his many dark nights of the soul. The overall tone harks back to the stoned playfulness of his first two albums, with 3 of the selections originating from his 1999 debut.
The reworkings on Duppy Writer are not the experimental dubs of 'Dub Come Save Me' but seem somehow more authentic and less Anglicised, drawing from a different era of Jamaican music - the mid 1980s, more reminsicent of the digital dancehall originators rather than Lee 'Scratch' Perry or Scientist. The naive, major-key synth basslines on Big Tings Redone and Proper Tings Juggled are definite homages to the fingered Casio beats of early Ragga milestones such as the Sleng Teng riddim. This is strictly Roots music, and seems much safer, and more retrospective, than much of his back catalogue. These tracks are largely faithful recreations of 80s dub, but they sadly offer little in the way of fresh sounds and strange fusions with electronica, something we've come to expect from Rodney Smith. Still, these are good earthy versions of some of Roots Manuva's more esoteric tunes, rooting them in heavy bass and accessible summer vibes.