- The dub pioneer's posthumous album falls far short of his legacy, muddled by overproduction and unnecessary guest appearances.
- Lee "Scratch" Perry's arrangements always had a bit of runaway imperfection. Lyrics were at times nonsensical, other times he would just speak complete gibberish. But his words and his rhythms carried magical qualities, and he relied on his gravelly vox box as just another instrument in his considerable dub arsenal. His music was a hit-'em-up combo of earthly sounds and weighty reverb—some wretched shaker might appear and then vanish in the skank, along with aerated bong noises, out-of-context-horns and rattles that stumble through arrangements that only he could put together. But no matter how scary or freaky his classic late-'70s concoctions got, they always brought the bump science. He would scare the funk out of you and then revive it.
There was no one—nobody—coming close to the dubby psychedelic spliff music that Perry, who died in 2021, was pumping out at an impressive clip from his Black Ark Studio in Kingston, Jamaica, in the '70s and '80s. Virtually everything he recorded there was made with modest technology and from that, he—alongside contemporaries that included everyone from King Tubby to Karlheinz Stockhausen—constructed a template that would shape the future of electronic music. Dub was the forebearer of house, bass music, techno, drum & bass and hip-hop. All other active ingredients within the dance music world mushroomed from dub. Perry used the mixing desk to do unreal things, pulling tracks apart and rewiring them back together, moving the dance floor as much as the featured artist. His use of technology was key, but it was methodology that was more important: his one-of-a-kind ear and that bit of madness he carried with him.
So it's baffling to think that Perry suddenly would have wanted to explore synthwave, drum & bass, big beat and other subgenres—"something new, something different but still with a dub framework," according to the press release from his first posthumous album. King Perry is produced by Daniel Boyle, who also produced the 2014 Grammy-nominated Back On The Controls LP, which was followed up five years later with The Black Album. King Perry was conceived, written and recorded during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. Maybe, during that isolation period, instructions or notes got lost. King Perry (released on Tricky's label—he also co-produces four tracks) simply falls flat, lost in technological tricks and devoid of Perry's classic, quizzical warmth.
The vocal exchanges between Perry and London singer Greentea Peng on the lead track "100lbs of Summer" are legitimately charming, almost familiar. Baked in with whimsical dancehall horns, it starts things off well, and Peng plays her role like a seasoned veteran. "King Of The Animals," on the other hand, sounds more like the dancehall preset on some old keyboard. It doesn't stick the landing. Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder joins Perry on the uptown metallic skank of "Green Banana," which is presumably a play on his Super-Ape records, but the monochromatic tone plays just as uneventful as ending credit music to the 2015 EDM exploitation film We Are Your Friends. Not as fast—but just as uninspired.
Where Perry's original creations are moody mysteries unto themselves, the ideas here get to run roughshod until you end up somewhere completely different than you started. "Jesus Life," a Tricky production, follows the ambiguous route of dub introduction into a droney techno pattern where Perry's vocals once again serve as an insignificant decoration rather than the prominent feature that he should be. "No Illusion," a drum & bass-dancehall hybrid, has a thunderous and monotonous beat that flails like a poorly executed edit. Even worse, Perry clumsily portrays himself as Merlin in an unusually one-dimensional performance.
On the lovely "The Person I Am," Rosie Waite sings lyrics about the musical choices Perry has made over his generous career. The horns elevate, give flight and raise the innovator. So his spoken expressions here are bookended, not boxed in, with compassion and mortality. You get a sense Perry was attempting to make a grand farewell with this final project. He deserves far better than the sub-par result. We have the Black Ark discography to prove it.
Tracklist01. Lee Scratch Perry and Greentea Peng - 100lbs of Summer
02. Evil Generation
03. Lee Scratch Perry feat. Fifi Rong - Midnight Blues
04. King of the Animals
05. Lee Scratch Perry and Shaun Ryder - Green Banana
06. Jesus Life
07. Lee Scratch Perry featuring Marta - I Am a Dubby
08. No Illusion
09. Lee Scratch Perry featuring Rose Waite - The Person I Am
10. Lee Scratch Perry featuring Greentea Peng - Jah People in Blue Sky
11. Lee Scratch Perry featuring Tricky and Marta - Future of My Music
12. Goodbye