Starting Thursday, September 8 in New York, Dubspot is excited to be a part of Sound Liberation Front and New York label Subatomic Soundsystem’s Dub Invasion Festival. Spanning 10 days in both Boston and New York, the festival will feature a collection of live music, workshops, and documentary screenings. Gathering many of dub and reggae’s most influential, past and present, is not only a celebration of the genre alone, but the massive sound revolution dub culture sparked—reverberations that are felt throughout today’s most progressive music, electronic and otherwise.
Here at Dubspot, we honor that history in more than name alone, and will be hosting a series of masterclass workshops, at Dubspot HQ and live streaming, with Dub Invasion performers Mad Professor, Adrian Sherwood, and Clive Chin, as well as a Dub Expo featuring presentations from music production leaders like Ableton, Native Instruments, Propellerhead, and iZotope. If these sessions aren’t informative enough, we’ll be screening three different dub documentaries during the day on Tuesday, September 13th.
Mad Professor is one of the most widely respected and well known dub producers and engineers in the world. Known for bringing dub production and engineering techniques to London’s musical landscape at a time when dub was still emerging in the city, and long before it would transform everything from punk to electronic music. Mad Professor has produced records with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Sly and Robbie, Sade, The Orb, and Massive Attack.
Adrian Sherwood, next to Mad Professor, may be one of London’s greatest dub and reggae champions. Forming the music collective Singer and Players in the 1980s alongside Mickey Dread and Prince Far I, Sherwood quickly became label head to a variety of labels releasing dub and reggae, including Hitrun Records, Pressure Sounds, and Green Tea Records. Sherwood has produced Sinead O’Connor, Skinny Puppy, Depeche Mode, and Coldcut, among others.
When you’re not getting an education in dub, the festival’s stacked bill features performances from infamous dub producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, playing at BB King’s in New York on Saturday, September 10th. Other headlining artists include workshop guests Mad Professor and Adrian Sherwood, as well as Brother Culture and Twilight Circus Dub. Other performances will feature New York fixtures, Nickodemus, Francois K, Jahdan Blakkamoore, and Raz Mesinai aka Badawi.
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