Yabby You & The Prophets

★★★★ The Yabby You Sound: Dubs & Versions PRESSURE SOUNDS. CD/LP

Vintage version excursions from the ‘Jesus Dread’. Jamaican singer/producer Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson literally made his name with 1972 debut 45 Conquering Lion. Its opening chant, “Beyou, yabby-yabby-you”, gave him the sobriquet he’d be known by for the next four decades, while the tune itself set the template for his brand of deep, devotional roots reggae. This top-tier 20-track selection mines various heavyweight dub productions Yabby cut from 1975-82 with his harmony group The Prophets, plus vocalists Michael Prophet and Wayne Wade, at Kingston studios Dynamic, Black Ark, Harry J and Channel One. Standouts include the thunderous, echo-chamber science of Heads A Roll Dub and Vengeance In Dub’s propulsive percussion rolls and squishy sound effects, deftly mixed by King Tubby and Prince Jammy respectively. Elsewhere, the prevailing undercurrent of dread is epitomised by Warrior No Tarry Yah Version’s (a deconstruction of The Paragons’ Man Next Door) amalgam of valley-deep bass vibrations and pulverising drums.