Bleep

The meeting of Vladislav Delay (Sasu Ripatti), Sly Shakespeare and Robbie Dunbar produces the set of mind-expanding post-dub experiments that everyone hoped it would. All involved are on top form on Vladislav Delay Meets Sly & Robbie: 500-PUSH-UP, with the rocksteady grooving of the Riddim Twins and Vladislav Delay’s adventurous electronics bouncing off one another to create some brilliantly creative musical excursions.

Having worked together previously on Nils Petter Molvaer’s Nordub project, the legendary Jamaican bass/drum duo and Finnish producer extraordinaire knew they had good chemistry even before Ripatti went to Kingston in 2019. The grooves and vocal snippets that Sly & Robbie laid down in the subsequent sessions were delightfully playful, and Vladislav Delay ran with that energy when he went over the recordings in his studio back in Scandinavia.

Throughout 500-PUSH-UP, Vladislav Delay’s studio wizardry is guided both by the crispness of the rhythm section and also by a commitment that the record will welcome the listener in. There may be plenty of challenging timbres - indeed, some of the distorted atmospherics and billowing reverb used here border on noise and glitch - but at no point on 500-PUSH-UP are these deployed in a manner which alienates the listener. As such, many of the tracks recall the very best of Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound output as well as the dubwise innovations of Jay Glass Dubs.

On Vladislav Delay Meets Sly & Robbie: 500-PUSH-UP, the Jamaican bass/drum pair and polymath Finnish electronic musician combine to create a wonderfully inventive collection of post-dub productions.