Always Greener (On The Other Side) [LP]

The grass is greener... elsewhere..."" Brain Damage told us with their debut album, released in 2002. Yet here, they've reached full maturity. Rarely has a ""made in France"" dub album strayed so far from the Jamaican model while still harboring, in every detail, so many references and tributes to the inventors of the style (King Tubby / Lee Perry), as well as to many of the key figures in it's evolution (Tikiman / Rhythm & Sound, Dub Syndicate, etc.). The recording studio, 7/11 Laboratory, is used here as a true musical instrument. The optimal use of three-dimensional stereo effects will immerse the listener in soundscapes ranging from classic space echoes and Mont Blanc tunnel-style reverberations to crackles, electronic interference, exogenous samples, and other parasitic noises coming straight from Babylon. For this album, continuing in the vein of his previous collaborations with the international dub scene (Zion Train, Alpha & Omega, Disciples, Spectre, Lab°...), Brain Damage traveled to London to record two tracks at Conscious Sounds Studio with Jamaican-born singer Tena Stelin. With the melancholic ""Spirit World,"" one is reminded of the fruitful collaborations between Massive Attack and Horace Andy, while on ""Genetic Weapon,"" the tone becomes more overtly assertive. Two vocal tracks, then, woven into these ten compositions, where the emotional moods and atmospheres will shift with each listen. ""Always Greener (On the Other Side)"" emerges as the manifesto of music conceived as cinema for the ear...