Thursday, December 10, 2009

Solomonic!


Here's a tune that doesn't really go with any of the others that I've got done at the moment. "Arab Oil Weapon" was one of Bunny Wailer's first releases on his Solomonic label, and also one of the best. The lyrics are a really satisfying mix of the 1973 oil crisis and the parable of the lamps, and the rhythm is damn heavy. It came out on Solomonic in 1974 or 1975: a 12" remix got reissued on Nighthawk in 1981, but hasn't seen the light since which is a shame. I remember this always used to be mad sought-after, so I was very happy to pick up a wrecked copy for not much at all.

I've not done many posts recently, mainly because of the effort of cleaning up and tagging the records. Take this one for example. It starts out like this http://www.mediafire.com/?zuymzndzjym (it was also slightly off-centre, so I centered it by eye) - piss-poor condition; lots of crackle and a sort of scouring noise in the
 background. I know a lot of people like their rare tunes with crackling,  but when it reaches this sort of level it gets distracting.

Anyway, after a bit of work, it sounds like this http://www.mediafire.com/?zymy5235jug  Listening to it now, I'm thinking it probably needs more rumble filter and less harmonic exciter, but that's for another day.

Hope you enjoy.

2 comments:

the_voice_of_reason said...

From the facts that (1) the backing band is clearly the "Burnin'" era Wailers, (2) the tune is credited to "Wailers" and written by Jean Watt, and (3) it was distributed by Tuff Gong, I've always tended to assume this was recorded very soon after the release of "Burnin'"; possibly right after the Wailers returned from the unhappy winter tour in 1973.

The dub cut on the 45 is very different to the one on the Nighthawk pressing by the way.

Thanks.

david said...

wicked cut! Would like to here 'searching for love' now too. Similarly excellent tune from Bunny!