The Ruts: Babylon's Burning - Reconstructed - Dub Drenched Soundscapes
Various Artists
Collision (Cause of Chapter 3), 2005
I have not subjected myself to a cable TV subscription for over a decade. On the rare occasion I do get to experience its cultural joys, usually while being a hotel room guest, one of the first things I search for is The Iron Chef cooking show. Think of this as an Iron Chef episode with remix artists instead of chefs and the secret ingredient being the most well known Ruts track – “Babylon’s Burning”.
Fortunately, this track is fertile ground on all fronts. The dissections, focusing, manipulating, twists and sonic reworks on this CD take you all over the place but never do any of the aural etchings bore you. These are my favorites.
One of the most satisfying takes is the first. Coming from Ruts drummer Ruffy, he strips it down to vocals and under lays the now classic lyrics with a string rendition. Powerful.
Track 4, from Don Letts, arguably the man responsible for connecting reggae and dub with punk, is a cool hypnotic work out. One of the weird things for me on this track is hearing a guitar part isolated that pretty much Daniel Ash stole and expanding on tonally for his entire style.
Surround sound theatrics on track 5 from Terminal Head focus in on the beyond brilliant bass line and mix in sonic fireworks, then break it down to a sizzle breather before slamming it up to full again.
Babylon 23 and Apollo 440 really drag it deep with a strip down to bass & vocal. They use some great, hard, in and out punches of the drums and guitars.
The European-spy movie take by Black Star Liner is another standout. It cools it down and floats along. Vocal presentation on this one really makes you wonder what Malcolm could have yet created had he not left the planet so young.
Kid Loco’s traditional dub work out is another stand out.
There are no stinkers on this disc. The real question is: Are you the type of person to want 16 versions of a song? My thoughts are that it depends on the song. There are thousands of worse ones that could have gotten this treatment. I never did find myself getting tired of the lyrical repeat. The folks at Collision (Cause of Chapter 3) really need to get this hooked up as part of a Ruts Box set. Nice to see a project like this come successfully. Keep at em!
