BAF or Pressure Sounds

[Jah Glu]

I like Greensleeves to but this is a debate about Pressure Sounds and BAF. Don't call me an adult or angry teacher or something...im only 13 yunno...

[Jason Allen]

JAh Glu- Are you really 13? If so, what brought you into liking reggae (I thought 13 year olds were now mandatorially required to listen only to either AFI or Justin Timberlake). You really are ahead of the game. I didn't really start listening to roots (outside of Bob, Peter, and Toots) until i was 18 or 19. What spurred your interest (or was the 13 thing just a joke)?

[Jah Glu]

No it's true, i am 13. The first time i heard reggae and liked it was when i heard "Cocaine In My Brain" with Dillinger on some One Hit Wonders Compilation. It sounds more like disco but still reggae. And then because i liked just that song he bought me the "Cocaine In My Brain" anthology on Trojan which i also (and still do) really liked. But my whole interest for reggae started with my love for Dub. My dad bought the compilation Trojan Dub Massive Vol. 1&2 because he wanted to know what dub was, so that was his own decision and had nothing to do with me. But then i started liking it and i went down to my local reggae shop and just bought alot with the artists on the dub compilation. Scientist, Prince Jammy, King Tubby etc. Then i was hooked on Dub but not on reggae. So after a while where i had been collecting as a madman and when i couldnt find anymore dub albums to buy because i bought all dub albums that i wanted! So then i thought: If i like dub so much, i will propably also like the original songs. So then i started buying some Horace Andy, Johnny Clarke, Barrington Levy compilations and i really liked them too. And then i bought more and more, Rocksteady, Ska, Digital Dancehall (85-89) Roots and so on. Never really cared for Bob...How come it's easy to make a report in RA but not in school!

[Jason Allen]

Always easier to right about something you love! Thanks for the reply. Seems like you've learned a decent amount about a lot of different artists in a short few years. I thought I was a rabid collector but you got me beat.
Anyhow, as you said, this is about BAF vs. Pressure Sounds.

As much as i like Blood and Fire, it always seemed to me that they were more like a re-master label rather than a re-issue label. What i mean by this is that the majority of stuff I own fom BAF was already readily available in some form or another. Both Heart of the Congos and Congo Ashanti were on VP. The Dennis Brown Promised Land stuff was already on releases of Joseph's Coat. Cornell Campbell stuff was almost all available on other comps. Junior Byles tracks, Bim Sherman tracks, a lot of the Yabby You tracks were all already on other releases still in print. BAF did a WONDERFUL job of re-mastering and packaging. They included DJ versions of tracks, Dubs, a few lost outtakes, etc. But, the albums were not really obscure or lost since the vinyl era (with the rare exception of the Prince Alla stuff and some Johnny Clarke).
Labels like Pressure Sounds and Makasound (and lately Greensleeves) actually seem to re-release albums that have not been in print since the digital age. Most have only ever been on vinyl and were long, long out of print. Artists like Knowledge, Mighty Threes, Earth and Stone, Little Roy, etc. etc. would probably never make it (legally) to the ears of most listeners if not for these labels.

[ppff]

Jamaican Gold is my favourite. The only one that has inside an ad for a Kingston hotel.

[Lion]

Only that hotel got a new name and owner.
Yeah Jamaican Gold is a great label.


Lion

[wareika]

Jason Allen point about the remastering is 100% correct. Even the Ras Allah set he mention was available as reissue on Tappa.

The point is that to my hear the remastering process was pushed to far by B&F, especially for the second part of the catalogue. OK, the sound is "good" as there is no surface noise. But the release lost the dynamic and IMHO it killed the music. This point was discussed several time on their board and it was the main negative point about the label even if some persons like the "new" sound.

As an exemple I bought the prince Allah set as it is among my fav LP. I already got the repress LP and the "Daniel" 12" on Stars. Actually I only played once the CD cause it really sound flat compared to the Tappa repress. The Tappa repress use the original matrix, great sound minus the surface noise due to the matrix deterioration. I just bought the Stars press few weeks after the CD and now I'm really happy.

On the other hand Pressure Sds is a realy reissue label which offered long lost stuff. The point is they don't push as far the cleaning process. To my hears it sounds better even if some CD have quite an important surface noise...

Makasound did some nice stuff, but I don't like the way they reissue it. For instance it's a pity they didn't reissue the full Knowledge LP + 12" and dubs as bonus. They prefere to add some tune from the second LP. The sound is radically different and it kills the unity of the CD. The point is that the Hail Dread LP is a very good one and the full collaboration with Zuckie is strong. But who gonna reissue the missing tunes from Hail Dread and the other 12" they didn't put on their comp?

wareika