Dub Side Of The Moon is a Complete Reggae Version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. The Easy Star All-Stars' stunning reinvention of this beloved record features entirely new recordings with guest vocal appearances by Frankie Paul, Corey Harris, Gary "Nesta" Pine (of the Wailers), The Meditations, Dr. Israel, Ranking Joe, Sluggy Ranks, and more. Every detail is there, from sound effects to Wizard of Oz synchronicity.

The album has spent over a year and a half on the Billboard reggae charts.

"Bongtastic" -- Rolling Stone

"A spacious, magical groove that stretches over voluptuous versions of psychedelic landmarks..." -- Vibe

Easy Star All-Stars:

Michael Goldwasser: guitar
Victor Axelrod a.k.a. Ticklah: piano, organ, electric piano, clavinet, synthesizer, melodica, percussion
Patrick Dougher: drums
Victor Rice: electric bass, upright bass on “Eclipse”

With

Jenny Hill: saxophone on “Money,” “Us And Them,” & “Any Colour You Like”
Michael Wagner: trombone on “Breathe” & “Any Colour You Like”
Wayne Wiggum: electric bass on “Breathe” & “Money”
Larry McDonald: percussion on “Speak To Me” & “Eclipse”
Tamar-Kali: background vocals on “Eclipse”

Produced, Arranged and Mixed by Michael G and Ticklah.

Liner Notes:

Dark Side Of The Moon’s cover image of a beam of white light passing through a prism and emerging as a full spectrum stands as a metaphor for life’s complexity-though it may represent the mind of the listener after exposure to Pink Floyd’s masterpiece as well. Dub Side Of The Moon’s aim is to split that beam into reggae’s red, gold and green without sacrificing the nuances that made the original so powerful.

The idea was born during a walk through downtown New York in 1999. Easy Star was about to release its second album, the Meditations’ Ghetto Knowledge, and I was hustling around taking care of the maddening details that go into running a record label. I also happened to be listening to Dark Side Of The Moon in a walkman. Like millions of people, I have very strong connections to Dark Side. I discovered the record in my teens-for six months during junior high, I played side two every single morning before school. On this listen, after years of immersing myself in Jamaican music, I began to imagine it as a reggae record. The concept of taking an entire album and rearranging it within the rules of a completely different genre-almost like a gene splicing experiment-was fascinating. As I discussed this with my partners Eric, Remy and Michael, we realized that this might also be an innovative way to expose reggae to a broader audience (one of Easy Star’s long term goals), since may people had listened to the records at some point in their life and might be interested in experiencing it in a totally new way. The music had room for reinterpretation, and its expansive structure fit in perfectly with reggae’s dub sensibilities. We began fleshing out the concept for what we hoped might eventually be a groundbreaking release for our label.

While each of the four Pink Floyd albums between 1973 and 1979 transformed huge themes into rousing studio experiments, Dark Side Of The Moon stands as the most resonant – most likely because the record examines the human condition as skillfully as any anthropologist could. Starting and ending with a heartbeat (the symbol of life), the narrative moves on a path from birth (“Breathe”) to death (“The Great Gig in the Sky” and eventual spiritual resolution (“Eclipse”), all while exploring the basic forces that shape mankind: time, or lack thereof (“Time”), movement (“On The Run”), possessions (“Money”), conflict (“Us and Them”) and madness (“Brain Damage”). These universal matters suffer little in our musical translation; reggae has long tackled humanist themes, especially those that document daily suffering and endless hope. Many Jamaicans can understand where a lyric like “But if you ask for a rise there’s no surprise that they’re giving none away” is coming from (as shown in the lyrics of countless reggae songs, such as the Maytones’ “Money Worries” and Junior Byles’ “Fade Away).

The arranging of the material was a challenging task; we were determined to get to the heart of the piece and turn it into something that might have been recorded this way in some parallel universe. The basic idea was to combine the original melodies and chord structures with reggae rhythms, though it was never that simple. The tunes were arranged in a variety of roots reggae styles, employing the drum technique of the Roots Radics on “Breathe”), the rockers vibrations popularized by the Revolutionaries (on “Time” and the middle section of “Money”), Nyabinghi drumming (on “Speak to Me” and “Eclipse”), and the one drop style (“The Great Gig In The Sky” and “Brain Damage”). “On the Run” was updates for 2003 as a drum & bass version to match the original’s slightly out of place futurism. Since guitar solos are less than predominant in traditional reggae, David Gilmour’s leads were replaced by horns (“Any Colour You Like”), melodic (“Time Version”), and toasting (“Time” and “Money”). Much care was taken to reproduce other musical elements – such as the spoken voiceovers that punctuate the original – so listen closely!

The basic tracks for the album were recorded at Noise NY in Mt. Vernon, owned by Ira Heaps of NYC’s fabled Jammyland record store. Producers Michael G and Ticklah were joined by old band mates Patrick Dougher and Victor Rice on drums and bass. Layers of keyboards, guitars, horns, vocals, and percussion were added at Ticklah’s studio in Brooklyn.

It was during the long mixing sessions that the dark side truly transformed into the dub side. Following reggae tradition, we added four dub mixes to the end of the sequence. “Time Version” is an instrumental mix of “Time” that includes Ticklah’s melodic solo instead of Ranking Joe’s verse. “Great Dub In The Sky” and “Any Dub You Like” are heavily dubbed out, while “Step It Pon The Rastaman Scene” takes an alternate mix of the instrumental “Any Colour You Like” and adds some classic deejaying from Ranking Joe to complete the new edition. (Initially, Joe was only supposed to voice on “Time,” but got so into the vibes during the recording that he hit another song.) These tracks take the regular sequence (and the listener) even further into uncharted territory. While immersed in heavy doses of delay, reverb, drop outs, and filters, you may agree by the end that “There is no dub side of the moon; as a matter of fact, it’s all dub.”

Lem Oppenheimer (September 2002)