Product Review
The nearly four hours of astounding music encoded on these three discs merely scratch the surface of the highly personal sonic universe created by this legendarily eccentric, yet ridiculously prolific, dub-reggae producer. It's still the best source of entry into Lee "Scratch" Perry's world, though, a place defined by homemade avant-garde production techniques applied to the wittiest, angriest, sexiest, and most soulful reggae tunes ever written. Perry was born in 1936, and his career spans the history of Jamaican music. These 52 tracks, however, derive mainly from the late 1970s, when he was at the height of his considerable powers and recording hits like Max Romeo's "War in a Babylon" and Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" for Island. Helpfully annotated, with a healthy handful of unreleased tracks, Arkology is a beginner's banquet of tracks that sound increasingly deep, daring, and downright frightening as the depth of Perry's talent is plumbed. --Richard Gehr

More than most of my 500 or so reggae, etc. cds and lps that I own, I turn to this "Scratch" Perry set for laughs, oohs and aahs, and general amazement. The tracks on here are priceless, with many of the takes better than the album releases they were on (Junior Murvin's classic "Police and Thieves," and "Roots Train," and Max Romeo's "War Ina babylon" and "One Step Forward" are prime examples). Add to many of these tracks alternate takes or sizzling dub takes (the quartet of "Police and Thieves" is just amazing stuff, as is Perry's phat grooved dub on the Meditations' beautifully harmonized yet potent "Life Is Not Easy," complete with mooing cows..wow), and the cup of Perry's greatness runneth over. There is no doubt that what Perry did during his time in the fabled Black Ark are among the most important works of dub ever done. More so, the fact that established trios like the Heptones, Congos, and Meditations, all went to Perry is no small measure of the deep respect that Perry garnered all through Jamaica. Folks, this is a no-brainer. Get this set, listen to it 20 times, THEN pass judgement on it. I have owned it from the day it came out, have listened to it hundreds of times, and am still finding new nuances mixed deep in these mixes. As an audio engineer, I have access to recording agdgets all the time- top of the line stuff, and what "Scratch" was able to do with simple echplexes and the like is beyond my comprehension. The mixes and dubs are THAT incredible. Go get this set and enjoy. Comment | Permalink | (Report this)