Mixtape 367 • Dub Night
This special edition contains a variety of songs and artists that call themselves “dub,” and also some dub.
This special edition contains a variety of songs and artists that call themselves “dub,” and also some dub.

The three-hour live shows have settled into their own rhythm, with the stranger and more electronic offerings drifting into the territory of The Final Hour, between 11pm and midnight. This show is for the early risers who might be familiar with the upbeat indie pop that gets played at the top of the show but are missing out on the darker moods that are featured near the end.
The best dub music happens when the flow and repetition, the interlocking arrangements, and the roots-heavy vocals all work together to make the time dimension an immeasurable elastic abstraction.
Taking a vibrantly psychedelic sound and drenching it in cavernous production has made sure Lilys have always floated through time with a sound that is clearly from the past but also obviously from the future.

It's Member Drive time, and nothing says "support your community radio station" louder than three hours of Dub Night. Not a whole lot of funding was raised, but no matter! Three hours of heavy bass rhythms were played.
Sometimes rock and roll seems to get stuck in a rut, but The New Madness bring fresh life to a sound that was old before they were born.

One of the kingpins of dub easily proves his worth on this retrospective covering the first four decades of UK producer Mad Professor and his deep undulating grooves, universal sounds that are neither fresh nor dated, but eternal.

“Batu means ‘rock’ in Malay” said the photographer, for the third time in a week. The sous-chef ignored the comment, also for the third time, and tried squinting in the darkness at the cribbage board. They had been wise enough to purchase a glow-in-the-dark deck after all these midnight assignments, but had yet to extend their ingenuity to the board. Tapping a foot in irritation, they knocked over the thermos full of hot cocoa set on the steps, and it would have rolled down several long flights of guano-covered stairs had it not been stopped by the tandem bike’s wheel leaning against the statue’s pedestal. Above them, Lord Murugan stared stonily into the dark.
I am generally skeptical and disrespectful of band names with special capitalization, but IDLES look and sound like they mean business.

The best place to hide seemed to be, ironically, right behind the ballot box. The numerologist and the baker had been underway on a wholly distinct mission, having already secured the deflated knifeboats inside a conveniently placed culvert. They now seemed to be caught in the crossfire of two opposing factions, each intent on some inscrutable and erratically violent purpose that seemed to be nothing but foiling the other side’s efforts. The roving skirmishes had drawn away participants and created a fairly event-free circle of balance where the pair could hunker down and plan their next move. It was going to be a long night.