OK! This is a nice summer surprise! Frequent eMusic visitors will know how deep my love for reggae flows, and so you can imagine my incredible delight when I was sent this kinda great dread cover of “Sliver.” Hearing that sing-song melody, I cannot believe no one thought of this sooner — it was a rocksteady song waiting to happen. Listen above, then buy the single (b/w a cover of “Dive”) for a measly .98 here.

I have seriously been waiting since my first day at eMusic for this record to show up, so you can imagine how I gasped when I saw it in “New This Week” today. Cedric Im Brooks & the Light of Saba. There are days I refer to this as “my favorite reggae record of all time.” Today, in fact, was one of those days.

In truth, it’s not a start-to-finish record — it’s a compilation of Cedric’s solo work that was originally released on the Honest Jon’s label about six years ago. Simply put: this record is a masterpiece, a perfect blend of awesome, dank, Rasta roots reggae with calypso, jazz and Afropop. It’s mystical and haunting — Brooks’ sax lines slither and sway, and there’s a power and determination to the music here that is downright hypnotic. Listen to the craggy, aching vocal on “Free Up Black Man,” the way it hangs above the squelching guitars and those heavy-lidded bongos. Listen to the breezy, swinging “Nobody’s Business,” a woman’s choir bouncing around Brooks’ jubilant alto sax. Plunge deep into Brooks’ take on the “Satta Massa Gana,” which brings out the churning darkness at the center of this Rasta doxology. This is serious roots music, haunting and spiritual. An absolute must.

An unbelievable reggae haul hit the site today — I feel like I find myself typing that sentence a lot! — below the cut, I’ll do my best to break it down.

Since we got a number of types and styles of reggae, it makes the most sense to break them out stylistically. So we’ve got:

Sweet & Melodic

John Holt, 18 Greatest Hits: So right out of the gate, you need his version of “My Sweet Lord.” When I sampled that in the office this morning, everything came to an “oh my god” dead stop. Gorgeous. The rest of the tracks here are just as good. Holt is awesome — he’s got a craggy voice that’s kiiiiiinda like Horace Andy’s, but the stuff here is lighter and more melodic than the kind of apocalyptic reggae Andy usually trafficks in. This one is a winner.

Various Artists, Jamaican Beat: Awesome. Light, rocksteady/doo-wop style numbers, absolutely catchy and infectious with superlative vocal performances. Listen to “Boom Shaka Laka” and tell me you don’t want to hit “Download All” immediately.

Leslie Kong’s Connection, Volume 1 and Volume 2: If you want my opinion, Volume 2 is the stronger one. Kong was a producer and label owner in Kingston in the 60s, and these 2 comps gather up some of the classic singles produced under his aegis. The second volume is all bright and sunny — straight sunshine reggae, perfect for the dying days of winter. Which is not to short-sell Volume 1, which has its charms as well. Basically, this is a goldmine.

Various Artists, Joe Gibbs Anthology: Back in Time ’70s & ’80s: Gibbs was a legendary producer, and the singles gathered here are a tiny bit sleeker and more “polished” than some of the other comps we got today. The version of “I’m Still in Love With You,” for example, can’t hold a candle to Alton Ellis’s version of the same. There’s two discs here, and though it’s really not digital reggae at all, I can see it appealing to fans of that approach more than the rustic 60s style. I could be crazy, though.

Various Artists, Rock Steady CD1 : No idea what became of CD2. These are classic rocksteady/ska jams from Duke Reid’s legendary Treasure Isle studios. A good mix of vocal-driven numbers and instrumental ska. Very two-tone, very good (pick hit: Stranger Cole & Patsy Todd’s beautiful, doo-wop inspired “Hey Hey Baby.”)

Various Artists, Raw Roots Volume 1 and Volume 2: This is a weird mix of dub and spookier-sounding reggae. There are some absolute gems here — The Heptones’ “Sweet for You Baby” on Volume One and Ken Boothe’s terrifying “Artibella” on Volume 2 are both unbeatable. You may want to weed out (no pun intended) some of the dubs, as they tend to interrupt the continuity. Or I might just be imposing my taste on you.

Various Artists, Gems from the Treasure Isle: More classic Treasure Isle singles. Had to mention because this features some cuts from the amazing Alton Ellis.

Various Artists, Greatest Jamaican Beat Music: This is sturdy, but might not be my first pick. You can hear the calypso influence in a lot of these tracks. They’re lovely and well-constructed, but might be more for hardcore completists.

Don Carlos, Lazer Beam: Carlos has a light, bobbing vocal style. The melodies aren’t super strong — it’s more like lilting conversation over steady, bobbing production.

Grooving Instrumentals
Don Drummond, Jazz Ska Attack: I LOVE DON DRUMMOND. This record is awesome. Drummond did time in the Skatalites, so you can guess what you’re getting here: solid, bounding ska with strong melodic trumpet leads. It is awesome.

Various Artists, Jazz in Jamaica: Great, light ska, not as consistent as the Drummond but will satisfy fans of instrumental ska for sure.

Bloodshot Dub
Augustus Pablo, Augustus Pablo Meets King Tubby at the Controls: Pablo’s ghostly melodic weaves its way through Tubby’s rubbery dub production. It’s pretty spare overall, not immediately accessible, but still solid.

Black Uhuru, Love Dub: Digital dub, lots of drum pad hits and some icicle-drip guitar chords.

Lee Perry, Black Ark in Dub: A collection of spooky dub from the master producer, slightly more melodic and straightforward than the titles above.

Prince Jammy Presents Black Uhuru in Dub: Jammy turns in some lovely, melodic dubs of classic Black Uhuru tracks — like the Lee Perry, the songs here are a little more fleshed out and not as spacy as, say, the Pablo.

Plain Toasting
Dillinger, Kingston Ruler: Dillinger yammers away over some minimal production — all top-of-head improvising, not super melodic but fitfully inspired/inspiring.

I-Roy, Crisis TimeSoulful prophesying by I-Roy atop simple, bobbing dub. I-Roy’s voice is deeper and more pained than Dillinger’s, which suits his deeply spiritual Rasta subject matter.

King Sighta, Master of All: Can I call him the Momus of reggae, because he has an eyepatch? More toasting, not too different from the items above, except Sighta is not as driving as Dillinger or as profound as I-Roy.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better…

Various Artists, Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee Story: I mean, where do I even start? Four discs. FOUR DISCS. Nearly every one of these songs a massive reggae classic. I mean, Pat Kelly’s “How Long” is like a reggae Sam Cooke. “Wet Dream” shows up here again, along with Linval Thompson’s seminal “Don’t Cut Off Your Dreadlocks,” Delroy Wilson’s “Better Must Come,” Ken Boothe’s take on the Satta Massa Gana. Also, simply phenomenal covers: Ken Parker on “Sad Mood,” Slim Smith tackling “Aint Too Proud to Beg…” One giant warning: there appears to be some kind of screw-up in the tracklisting for Disc 4. Track 17 is identified as Horace Andy’s classic “Skylarking,” but it’s actually Track 18, so II’m going to try to figure out what’s going on here. In the meantime, though, if you have the credits, this is a must. You can probably skip the dubs of most of the songs, thought that might just be my personal preference talking.

Reggae summer! Today brings a new stash from Lee’s records, including one of the greatest reggae singles ever recorded, so here’s a quick roundup of what’s worth it.

Various Artists, Roots of Reggae: OK, so here’s a weird one. A good 70% of this is half-assed synth-reggae from genre pioneers. I was about to pass it over until I noticed, tucked waaayyy at the end of disc two, Max Romeo’s 150% Solid Gold Classic “Wet Dream.” In addition to being one of the greatest songs ever, “Wet Dream” was flat-banned from Jamaican radio shortly after its release. Romeo protested, saying the song was simply about what happens when the roof above your bed springs a leak. Which totally explains the chorus, “Lie down girl, make me push it up, push it up, lie down girl.” Those Jamaican radio programmers are perverts. As a hilarious postscript: a few years after this song blew up, Romeo became a committed Rastafarian and released one of the greatest reggae albums of all time, War Inna Babylon.

But to get back to this record: if you look in the neighborhood surrounding “Wet Dream” on disc two, you’ll also see some other reggae, um, ‘rarities’ — like “Monkey Man” by Toots & the Maytals (it doesn’t sound like the original, but it’s the same era), Lee Perry’s “Clint Eastwood Rides Again,” “Guns of Navarone” by the Upsetters, and a song titled “One Love” by Bob Marley that is absolutely not “One Love” by Bob Marley but, instead a medley of “One Love,” “All in One,” “Simmer Down” and a bunch of his other hits. And then, right in the middle, there’s the totally terrible “Cocaine in my Brain” by Dillinger. Basically: there’s gold here, but you have to dig for it.

Barrington Spence, Tears On My Pillow: So forget the fact that the artwork for this record looks like someone got carried away with Paint — the music is solid gold. As the title implies, these are breakup songs — which I guess is the opposite of lover’s rock? What would you even call that? Spence has a light, buoyant voice, and some of these songs are almost doo-wop in their spring and cadence (see: “Jasmine”). Spence sounds a little like Delroy Wilson — kinda sweet, kinda croony; the two standouts are “Pamela” and the soulful cover of “Yesterday.”

Various Artists, Classic Reggae Vocals 1972-76: Certainly lives up to the title. “Better Collie” finds Horace Andy riffing on the “Gorgon” melody and riddim; “Natty Dread Coxman” is a dubby turn from Linval Thompson and “I’ll Always Love You,” while not a Dolly Parton cover, is still straight beautiful — the kind of song you put on a mixtape for someone 6 times in a row. Most of these sound like they were ripped straight from the vinyl, which tends to bother some people. I am not one of those people. In fact, you could argue that the popping and the static enhances the tracks.

Various Artists, The Singers: As opposed to, say, the drummers? This one gets special mention for Don Carlos’s marvelous “Hog and Goat” and Johnny Clarke’s “Peace and Love in the Ghetto,” but it’s also got tracks from Freddie McGregor and Alton Ellis, which — like nearly everything those guys are involved with — are just as worthy of mention.

We also got two DJ/toasting albums that are worth noting, Jah Stitch, The Killer and Trinity, Big Man. I’ve kinda cooled on toasting albums lately. They have their merits, and these two have some dubbier flirtations that might appeal to some, but whenever I listen to them, I mostly find myself wanting to hear the original track rather than the one that’s being versioned. That’s just how I roll.

“I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation!”

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Bad Reputation; Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, I Love Rock N Roll: Two big surprises today: Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation and I Love Rock N Roll. I know some people view Jett as ’80s hard rock, but to me she’s about as punk as they come: all attitude and sneer and fistfight-riffs. I don’t see how anyone can come out the other side of the bruising “Bad Reputation” with any other opinion. Both of these records are badass, and if you’ve got even the tiniest soft spot for power-punk, you’re going to love these. Bad Reputation gets the strongest endorsement — even the ballads are basically straight power-pop (See: “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got”") — but I Love Rock N’ Roll has its charms, too. Somewhere, Lindsey Weir is smiling big.

And if that’s not enough, we’ve also got:

Apparat, Things to Be Frickled: Remix record from eMusic faves Apparat. eMusic’s Andy Battaglia interviewed Apparat as part of our ’07 year-end rollout. This album finds fellow electronic dabblers like Thomas Fehlmann and Telefon Tel Aviv making all of Apparat’s songs go terrifically pear-shaped.

Various Artists, Fallin’ Off the Reel, Vol. 1: The Fallin’ Off the Reel series collects and compiles the hard-funk 45s released by the Truth & Soul label. Volume 1 and Voume 2 are both highly recommended: serious funk for fans of the great, grimy Soul Fire label (before they got cleaned up a bit to become the more-precise but just-as-great Daptone). Both comps are big wins for R&B fans, and are serious fodder for budding DJs.

Admiral Tibett, Weeping & Mourning: A strange bit of digital reggae, somewhere right between dank roots and bright dancehall. Some of the production is a bit chintzy, but Tibett’s got a light, sweet voice that helps to get the songs over.

Much better is Dennis Brown, 20 Magnificent Hits. Dennis Brown has recorded so many spectacular songs that every new collection is essential. This one’s a good one, too, especially for the spectacular “The World is Hot Like a Melting Pot,” where Brown holds notes out for measures at a time.

See also Cornell Campbell, Silver Jubilee: Over two-dozen fantastic songs from Campbell including, of course, “The Gorgon.” This is more great roots music, heavy on the Rasta message and that bounding one-drop rhythm. These last few weeks have been an embarrassment of riches for reggae fans, and this release just adds to the spoils.

Even heavier on the Rasta vibe is The Mighty Diamons, Inna De Yard: This is close to the drum-heavy Nyabinghi worship music Ras Michael built his career on. This is less tuneful and a little more chanty, for lack of a better term. It is heavy, though: you can feel the incredible weight of these songs in even the brief samples. Recommended for the serious reggae fan.

We also got a pretty hefty stash of African music from the Jober label. I’ve spot-listened to a lot of this and it seems very heavy on the synths, with a few remarkable exceptions (a like this and this). I’d suggest sampling these before diving in.

A few fantastic titles turned up on the site over the weekend, so I wanted to take a few minutes to point ‘em out. Before I do, though: your day will not be complete until you download tracks 17 & 18 from Life Goes in Circles. I re-discovered these two over the weekend. Holy cow, man.

Various Artists, A Number of Small Things: If you haven’t yet discovered the charms of the Morr label, this compilation is your perfect intro. This is pure, perfect pop, whether it’s the sweet, strummy songs by Butcher the Bar, the hushed folk of sometime Jens Lekman collaborator Benni Hemm Hemm or the quirky Magnetic Fields cover courtesy of the stupidly-named John Yoko. I came of indie age during the era when people were mailing mixtapes of cutesy C86 pop back and forth across the country, and this compilation rides that same aesthetic to victory. Bookworms and bashful twerps, your time has come again.

Delroy Wilson, The Very Best Of… and Delroy Wilson, The Delroy Wilson Collection: I didn’t get to weigh in on the massive and amazing VP stash that showed up last week (but fear not — Jeff Chang is preparing not one, but two Dozens on the catalog), but I didn’t want to overlook the great reggae that showed up on Sunday. At the top of the list are these two titles from Delroy Wilson. This is the good stuff: that great roots sound topped with sweet soul vocals. Wilson is an R&B singer at heart, like Donny Hathaway or Bobby Patterson, and these songs showcase his flair for the deep groove. A pair of ‘must’s!

Tappa Zukie, Cork Tar and U-Roy, The Greatest Hits See above, kinda. Unlike Wilson, U-Roy and Tappa Zukie are DJs, so these albums consist mostly of toasting over dubs of hit reggae singles. Don’t underestimate their worth, though: Zukie and U-Roy are both top-of-their-game, and their top-of-head ramblings bring a freewheeling spirit to these tunes. Check out U-Roy gabbing and babbling on top of Cornell Campbell’s “Gorgon” or Zukie’s holy fire in “Righetous Anger.” These two are the perfect choices for unwinding on a Sunday afternoon.

Larry Norman, Only Visiting This Planet: Just pointing out another Norman disc for interested parties — I grew up around these records, so I always get a little charge when I see them on the site (see also, Charlie Peacock’s West Coast Diaries Vol. 2, which I’m going to guess has aged very badly). I am likewise wondering if the presence of Solid Rock records means we’ll be getting Daniel Amos’s monster concept album Horrendous Disc.

Alexander Turnquist, Apneic, Peter Broderick, Docile, Library Tapes, Fragment: I don’t really know much about the Kning Disk label, but all of these records are bound together by a similar aesthetic: long, moody sound collages, atmospheric and more than a little ominous. The songs don’t go anywhere, they just hang around, like that creepy guy in the hat and black coat that keeps turning up everywhere — sad, slow piano phrases looping over and over amid a cloud of static. I love stuff like this: I find it as dark and dreamlike as a David Lynch movie, so every one of these titles is working for me on the massive.

Bassekou Kouyate, Segu Blue: This isn’t your typical world music: Bassekou Kouyate will appeal to fans of Etran Finatawa and Amadou et Mariam; Kouyate is a master of the West African instrument known as the ngoni (it’s similar to a kora), and he braids together long strands of sound to make music that feels decidedly experimental. This is a bright, gorgeous record, one sure to appeal to fans of Malian music and the slightly more outré strands of (for lack of a better term) “world music.”

Seeing is believing. This is Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, sitting down outside Bob Marley’s house and joining in with a Rastafarian drum circle whilst on a royal tour of Jamaica. In the flesh-crawling-skin-shrinking-wince-wince-help-cringe stakes it’s up there with your dad trying to dance in front of your friends.
Royal tours are often the lamest of the lame (and often verging into unacceptable comments territory if Prince Phillip is involved), but this one really struck me as being particularly wince-worthy. As for what HRH is saying… I truly hope he’s stuck with the accepted Royal-to-non-Royal question: “So what do you do then?”

Stop the presses! Big new arrival for reggae fans today that I somehow missed until just now: Cedric Im Brooks & the Divine Light, From Mento to Reggae to Third World Music. Cedric is a master, and the bulk of his catalog is the real deal music — maximum dread for fans of that true, dank, mystic reggae. This compilation is a lot lighter than the stuff found on the Honest Jon’s comp Cedric Im Brooks & the Light of Saba (also known by its alternate title: The Greatest Record Ever Made), but it’s still a fine demonstration of Cedric’s virtuosity.

A little back story: Cedric used to be the saxophone player in The Skatalites, but his solo work veered off into the mystic, incorporating elements of jazz and Rastafarian worship music (his version of the Satta Massa Gana, included on this compilation, is my favorite by far). Check out what he does to the standard “Let’s Do Rock Steady”: Alton Ellis’s version is light and spry and full of randy energy, but Cedric’s sounds like a hymn: it’s massively slowed down, veers a little in-and-out-of-tune, but it’s got a haunting quality about it that’s hard to resist.

Like I said, this isn’t quite prime Brooks: his other records are a lot more mysterious and a lot spookier. But for that first taste, this is a great place to start.