Category Archives: ARTISTS

Asher Senator (b. Peter St Aubyn) grew up in Clapham, South London. He started deejaying at the age of 14 at house parties and then on the Buchanan Sound System along with his sparring partner Smiley Culture. Together they went on to deejay on sounds such as Black Harmony and Frontline before joining Coxsone Outernational and most famously Saxon Studio International in the early to mid 80’s.

Asher Senators inspiration as a deejay came from deejays such as Brigadier Jerry and Nicodemus who they often heard through sound tapes. His first single was “Abbreviation Qualification” b/w “Fast Style Origination” released on Fashion in 1984. It was voiced and mixed at the A-Class Dub Studio that was located under Dub Vendor at Lavender Hill. “Fast Style Origination” told the tale of the Fast Chat style originated by fellow Saxon deejay Peter King.

He then featured on the first LP release from Fashion, a various artists collection of English deejays. This featured “Fast Style Origination” and a split effort with Smiley Culture called “It’s Coming Down”. The latter being the only example on vinyl of the two sparring with each other.

In 1985 he would headline in the first part of a clash series with deejays from Jamaica and England contesting each other. The first volume of JA To UK Clash featured Asher and Johnny Ringo. Some more singles for Fashion followed, and in 1986 Ashers dropped his first and only solo album, Born To Chat.

In the late 80’s Asher set up his own label Senator Records where he would release his own productions featuring himself, Smiley Culture, Tippa Irie and Joseph Cotton. During the 90’s he featured on some various projects – many non-reggae.

Later on Asher would focus on community politics by setting up C.O.D.E. 7 Music, an organization created to help youths trying to get in to the music and drama industry.

Coming from the lively music scene in Arhus / Danmark the four Bo Marley boys created an highly unique style of Dub and Reggae by themselves. Using analog synths, obscure drum machines, Sax, African drums and a Roland Space Echo the outcome is a very special sound not heard in this line of music before. 100% Voltage Controlled Reggae roots!

After releasing “Bo Marley vs. disrupt” on Jahtari in 2006 / 2008 and playing lots of memorable live gigs with their Bo Marley mobil, most notably during the four Fusion festivals, the Bo boys are back with a monster ghettoblaster and the proper tape to go along with it: “Masters Of The Universe“.

When the posse is not busy with baking space cookies or re-wiring old synths they’re part of the highly successful bands Analogik and Bliglad.

Clouds is a Finnish electronic music production team that consists of Tommi Liikka and Samuli Tanner. Tommi is a Helsinki native and Samuli comes from a small village deep in rural Finland. The pair met through mutual friends in 1999, and ever since planned on working on some music together, hindered by both working on various projects and shows of their own. The plan was finally realised after a string of coincidences and happy accidents led them to sharing a house in the northern suburbs of Helsinki.

Both members share an interest in the DIY aesthetic often connecting all kinds of music made with passion, not brains. And passion is a trait that overlaps any genre or style boundaries, leading to music that is willing to break the mold.

By 2006, Tommi was already deep into dubstep, and when the pair finally got together for a few fun and productive sessions trying to nail down the style, Clouds was born. The Clouds sound is like a soundtrack to the invasion of earth by little and green, but dubwise, aliens. It’s a fresh take on the standards of dubstep, combining elements from video games, experimental music and hip-hop with deep melodic meditations and dancefloor-shredding basslines. Always keeping it fresh, Clouds tracks rarely tread a path they’ve previously stepped on. This has been noted by many of the scene’s top DJ’s, leading to Clouds being championed by people like Joe Nice, Geiom, Skream, N-Type, L-Wiz, Dj/Rupture, Mary Anne Hobbs and Tes La Rok. Not ones to leave the footwork for others, Clouds has also been travelling to spread their sound to various places such as China, France, UK (DMZ and Subdub among others), Russia, Ireland and Sweden.

Rootah started off producing music with NoiseTracker on his COMMODORE AMIGA 500 back in the early 90ies. Having been a DJ since his youth this side really gained momentum when Techno lifted off and he came across Basic Channel, the Detroit and Chicago sound, Elektro and tons of other related stuff in ca. 1995. He spent the next seven years with active DJing across Germany, occasionally organizing club
events, running an online record store, partying and more music production experiments. Meanwhile with samplers, synths and FX units.

In 1998 Rootah and disrupt met in Leipzig / Germany while working a day-job on a construction site. This sparked a row of more extensive studies into music and herbalogy as well as ultimately the idea for the Digital Laptop Reggae concept.

After an intensive time perfecting this he discovered that the feel, handling and sound of old analogue hardware gear seemed to miss. Since then Rootah is exploring the ying-yang fusion between computah and the rough charme of overheated tubes and tape-delays.

Once I quit my deep adolescent contempt for electronic music with the hexadecimal help of the Commodore AMIGA‘s FastTracker-program – later combined with the social and bodily experience of a raving multitude, constituted and driven onward by the orders of transnatural sound – I began to play around with the unlikely possibilitys this field kept on  unfolding. As we still like to fool around with many of the ways in which meaning and style are being produced.

“Illyah and Ltd. Candy” now is Limited Candy´s and my attempt to not just produce some audible frequencies and distinct styles but to position ourselves in an ideological field, which we are devoted to from the bottom of some corners of our hearts – a.k.a. Reggae/Dub. This simply means some sort of transversal fun and kind offence, since, beyond the orders of coolness, there is seemingly nothing left to believe in – just the insisting need to quit believing in favor for the sincere, in-alienated desire. So we comb the Ten Commandments out of our hair and try to have some serious fun, with a little help of our machines and our ghosts. Drink Coca Cola! Have Sex! Take care of yourself!

Originally hailing from South London, Tapes made his debut release on esteemed 8-bit digital reggae label Jahtari in 2009 with the “Hissing Theatricals” EP. In the 15 years since, a wide variety of releases continued on a host of acclaimed labels: Soon after, a spate of releases and appearances continued on labels such as Honest Jons, Sextags, Astro:dynamics, Meeuw Musak, Porridge Bullet, EM Records, Research Records, Good Morning Tapes and Cav Empt. He has also toured as a DJ and Live performer extensively world wide and hosts regular “all night long” sessions in Tallinn, where he now resides.

Recently, and in cellebration of the labels 20th anniversary, Tapes returned to Jahtari with “Photos of my Frog EP“. The records four amphibious instrumental scorchers with two accompanying 8-bit versions have become the bed-rock of his current live sets, mixing these up with other unreleased dubplate versions of Tapes tunes new and old.

Tapes is a musician who continues to follow his own eccentric compass – guided by tape hiss, digital ghosts, and an unshakable fascination with the small, strange beauties of the everyday.

Jamaican recording artist Lord Sassafrass (Michael Johnson) is best known as a dancehall Reggae DJ with the Black Scorpio Sound System. On Black Scorpio Sound, Lord Sassafrass introduced the world to General Trees, and the entire Horseman Crew. Sassafrass record the album “Horseman Connection” 1982 on Striker Lee’s Starlight label and the top selling album “Pocomania Jump” 1985 on Black Scorpio Records, controlling the number one slot on the charts with “Poco Jump.” He recorded other great songs like “Jamaica Way,” “Murder She Wrote” (with General Trees), and the enormous hit “Step Up In Life” (with Barrington Levy).

Much of Sassafrass’ musical history is seen in the live dance. Similar to the career of Brigadier Jerry, Sassafrass was entertaining in an era of live djs, where recorded music was secondary to the live dance. In 1985 he went to New York where he performed on heavy weight sound systems like Thirld World or GT Hi Power, just to name a few.

As Sassafrass enters his fourth decade in reggae, he has earned the respect of his peers and even his enemies. For example, a long- standing competitor with Black Scorpio Sound is the great Killamanjaro Sound. In a 2011 interview, when asked about Black Scorpio Sound, Papa Jaro was first to mention Lord Sassafrass: “Sassafrass was actually the teacher for General Trees. He was very exciting and he could make some lyrics that could make you laugh and have fun!”

His work today carries out the tradition he started almost forty years ago – a sound that is completely unique and his own.