The Fat controller
Previously exclusive dub plates from the UK’s No.1 reggae producer. Game over, says Lois Wilson.
FROM 2010 reggae producer Prince Fatty, AKA Mike Pelanconi, operated out of his Ironworks studio in Brighton. Modelled on the Channel One and Studio One set ups in Kingston, Jamaica, he practised a “keeping music live” policy and created such UK reggae classics as 2011’s Return Of Gringo! and 2012’s Versus The Drunken Gambler, plus productions for Little Roy, Hollie Cook and Ruts DC.
In down-time, with his house band led by drummer and MC Horseman, he also recorded literally hundreds of tracks, many of which were covers of his most beloved reggae 45s featuring the original Jamaican vocalists recutting their parts. When pressed up as dub plates and spun out, they earned him much respect – sound system culture is rooted in competition and no one else had copies of these tunes.
In The Viper’s Shadow collects 11 such exclusives and they make truly thrilling listening. Age has done nothing to diminish the exuberance and dynamism of Big Youth and George Dekker who impress on covers of The Temptations’ Get Ready and The Ethiopians’ Everything Crash. The first is given a rockers discomix rework: over Prince Fatty’s heavy dose of echo and reverb, the soulful, smooth-voiced Dekker croons Eddie Kendricks’ lines and Big Youth interjects with his signature gruff chants (“I have some children, but we can have some more!”). The second, written about the widespread strikes in Jamaica in 1968, is given a dread treatment. In their hands it becomes a dire ecological warning. It’s potent stuff, driven by a rawboned energy and fire.
Elsewhere, Fatty reunites Big Youth with Marcia Griffiths on a powerful retread of her 1977 number Steppin’ Out Of Babylon – Griffiths had sung backing vocals for Big Youth in ’70s Jamaica, and the pair still have chemistry, reconnecting spiritually as roots reggae gets soul.
Deep Sleep and Trouble, meanwhile, introduce Shniece McMenamin, a UK singer who has previously recorded with Drizabone and has a terrific voice – Fatty has already recorded an EP of ’60s covers with her, due for release later in the year, and the pair are currently working on an album. Deep Sleep reframes Chance Halladay’s 1959 popcorn song as haunting lovers rock. Trouble, written by McMenamin with Fatty and Horseman, is a militant call for justice. “When are we going to stand up and fight?” she demands.
From Cornell Campbell’s sweet falsetto on Two Timer – refigured as a poke at the backstabbing nature of the music industry – to the sublime rocksteady rhythms of Winston Francis’s The Break, there’s no filler here. Pelanconi has since sold his studio and splits his time between Brazil and Thailand. In The Viper’s Shadow provides a vital snapshot of Fatty at the controls.