DJ Spooky Raids Jamaican Label's Archives Again For Their 40th Anniversary
Published: Wednesday - December 5, 2007
Words by Miles Bennett
DJ Spooky (Photo: djspooky.com)
Multi-faceted musician and writer, DJ Spooky, honored the 40th anniversary of seminal Jamaican record label Trojan Records with a groundbreaking new release to mash-up several of their catalog's rich archives with Creation Rebel: Trojan Remixed.
The new project, which follows up 2006's critically acclaimed In Fine Style: DJ Spooky Presents 50,000 Volts Of Trojan Records, is a project of mash-ups created from various sounds and styles from Trojan's deep archives. On this collection, DJ Spooky links current music production with older techniques pioneered by Trojan catalog artists such as King Tubby and U-Roy where he explores the art of remixing, sampling, and turntablism, creating a mini history of electronic music.
Although is it known that techno started in Detroit, and hip-hop came out of New York, but with Creation Rebel, DJ Spooky shows that Jamaica may have gotten there first.
"For me, early dub and instrumental music out of Jamaica showed how non European, and non-industrialized countries could use technology in completely unexpected ways," says DJ Spooky. "For the 40th Anniversary of Trojan Records, I went through their archives and looked for songs that I thought reflected the diverse styles of Trojan, and its long relationship to underground culture worldwide... It was hard to get everything -- there was so much in their archive, that the only way I could bring myself to face the overload was to work with bits and pieces, and that's what Creation Rebel is about -- taking hold of music history to show how creativity made Jamaica the loudest island in the world."
The 14 track effort includes remixes of tracks from Bob Marley, Dawn Penn, The Observers, and Barrington Levy, among others.
So far, the album has received rave reviews from the likes of the New York Times, GQ magazine and Wired.
DJ Spooky himself has established himself as a leading international DJ, writer, musician, multi-media artist and critical figure in mainstreaming the DJ-as-artist concept. He spent last year touring the world presenting D.W. Griffith's 1915 controversial film "The Birth of a Nation" as an interactive video remix experience called "Rebirth of a Nation," which has been hailed as "a new experience in the evolution of art cinema and activism." Internationally known for over the past 10 years, his resume includes numerous albums, books, film scores and lectures as well as collaborations with countless artists including Yoko Ono, Slayer, Thurston Moore, Public Enemy, Lee Perry and more.
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