LATE NIGHT TALES PRESENTS
VINYL EXCURSION SELECTED BY DON LETTS
Artist: Don Letts
Title: Late Night Tales presents Version Excursion
selected by Don Letts Label: Late Night Tales
Catalogue No: ALN64 Genre: Dub Reggae
Formats: 2LP ltd / numbered / green
Unmixed Vinyl Version
CAT # ALNLP64
UPC: 5060391093741
Pressed on double 180 gram virgin vinyl. Includes 30cm art print.
Including download codes for the Don Letts mix and full unmixed
tracks as MP3 / FLAC / WAV.
A1 Ghetto Priest - Hercules (North Street West 'Late Night Tales' Dub)
EXCLUSIVE REMIX
A2 Prince Fatty & Shniece McMenamin - Black Rabbit
A3 Wrongtom Meets The Rockers - Dub In The Supermarket
EXCLUSIVE REMIX
A4 Gaudi Meets The Rebel Dread ft. Emily Capell - E = MC2
EXCLUSIVE TRACK
A5 Rude Boy - Superstylin' EXCLUSIVE REMIX
B6 Capitol 1212 ft. Earl 16 - Love Will Tear Us Apart
(Full Vocal Dub) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
B7 Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno - All I Do Is Think About You
(Far East Dub) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
B8 Zoe Devlin Love ft. Tim Hutton - Caroline No
B9 John Holt - You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
(Mad Professor 2021 Dub) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
B10 Cornell Campbell - Ital City Dub EXCLUSIVE REMIX
B11 Matumbi - (I Can't Get Enough Of) That Reggae Stuff
(Dennis Bovell Remix) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
C12 Gentleman's Dub Club ft. Kiko Bun - Use Me (Ben McKone Dub)
C13 Black Box Recorder - Uptown Top Ranking
C14 OBF - Sixteen Tons Of Dub
C15 Yasushi Ide - Ain't No Sunshine (Space Dub Mix) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
D16 The Tamlins - Baltimore
D17 15 16 17 - Emotion (Dennis Bovell Remix) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
D18 Ash Walker - There's Nothing Like This EXCLUSIVE TRACK
D19 The Senior Allstars - Slipping Into Darkness
D20 Easy Star All-Stars - Within You Without You
D21 Khruangbin - Dern Kala (Khruangbin Dub Mix) EXCLUSIVE REMIX
Cultural polymath - pop star, filmmaker, radio broadcaster,
commentator, Grammy winner. Oh and DJ, too. Take your
pick from the many coats worn by our selector, Don Letts
aka The Rebel Dread.
Born in Brixton, a child of the Windrush Generation, Letts’
slippery and unorthodox career is somewhat hard to define,
without taking a few detours around London, New York and
Jamaica. He began his working life managing the dauntingly
hip Acme Attractions on Chelsea’s Kings Road, where he
made a mark with his attitude, dress and, especially, the
pounding dub reggae that vibrated the shop’s walls. His first
gig as a DJ at the short-lived Roxy in Neal Street, became
mythical for turning a generation of punks on to reggae.
They in turn hipped him to their DIY ethos resulting in his
reinvention as a filmmaker. This led to a shed-load of music
videos (Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Clash, Bob Marley) not
to mention documentaries on the likes of Gil Scott-Heron,
George Clinton and Sun Ra.
In the ’80s, he was part of Mick Jones’ new venture, Big Audio Dynamite and his innovative use of samples were a core
part of their sound. Listeners of his weekly 6 Music radio
show are taken on a musical safari that moves seamlessly
between time, space and genre. It’s not called Culture Clash
Radio for nothing. So this latest bulletin from Letts HQ is
merely one angle of a multifaceted personality, his take on
the JA tradition of the cover version.
The history of Caribbean music owes a debt to R&B as many
of the early island releases were cover versions of US 45s.
Ska’s breakthrough commercially, Millie Small’s ‘My Boy
Lollipop’, was originally recorded by Barbie Gaye in ’50s New
York. Cover versions became quite a thing in Jamaica and
Don, following in that tradition, has dug deep with a selection of interesting dubbed out covers including thirteen
exclusives.
“A disciple of sound system, raised on reggae n’ bass culture
my go to sound was dub. Besides being spacious and sonically adventurous at the same time, its most appealing aspect
was the space it left to put yourself ‘in the mix’ underpinned
by Jamaica’s gift to the world - bass. But that’s only half the
story as the duality of my existence meant I was also checking what the Caucasian crew were up to not to mention the
explosion of black music coming in from the States. That’s
why this version excursion crosses time space and genre,
from The Beach Boys to The Beatles, Nina Simone to Marvin
Gaye, The Bee Gees to Kool & The Gang, The Clash to Joy
Division and beyond. You’d think it impossible to draw a line
between ‘em but not in my world. Fortunately, the ‘cover
version’ has played an integral part in the evolution of Jamaican music and dub covers were just a natural extension.”
There’s a diverse mix of classic and new, with legendary figures like John Holt, The Tamlins and Cornell Campbell, mixed
in with British veterans Mad Professor and the irrepressible
Dennis Bovell, while (relatively) young striplings Kiko Bun,
Emily Capell and Prince Fatty deliver the goods, with laidback Texan groovers Khruangbin also offering an exclusive
bass heavy-delight.
The song choices are diverse, from French dubsters’ OBF’s
renditions of ‘Sixteen Tons’, the miners’ paean popularised
by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 1950s, to Ash Walker’s refix
of Omar’s ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ and ‘All I Do Is Think
About You’, immortalised by the ill-fated Tammi Terrell and
preserved here by Quantic (the latter two both exclusives).
Being a Rebel Dread compilation, there’s a cover (by Wrongtom Meets The Rockers) of The Clash’s ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ while Don’s exclusive, naturally, is a rendition of Big
Audio Dynamite’s debut hit, ‘E = MC2’.
“Truth be told I’ve wanted to work with the Late Night Tales
crew from the get go. We’re talking nearly two decades such
was the allure of their musical aesthetic typified by curators
like Nightmares on Wax, The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Trentemoller,
Khruangbin and countless others. Now being as old as rock n’
roll (born in ‘56) and having nearly 20 years of Culture Clash
Radio under my belt I figured I was tooled up to musically juggle
with the best of ‘em. But I wanted to carve out a space that was
distinctly my own - something that reflected my musical journey
and the culture clash that’s made me the man I am today.”
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