Kiddus I ADD

Review

Album Review: Kiddus I - Topsy Turvy World

02/15/2013

The roots reggae scene of the 1970s is scattered with otherworldly-sounding Rasta artists with talents unmatched by their sparse released output. There was the vibrato voiced Fred Locks who only managed two albums in the decade. There was Junior Dan, the left handed progressive roots bassist, who has put out just two in his entire career. And there was Frank Dowding aka Kiddus I, whose cool soothing balm of a voice ushers in one of the key scenes in the movie Rockers, singing Graduation in Zion - the tune for which he is most known.

Dowding had an unusual Quaker education in St Mary before finding Rastafari. Singing was just one of many of his pursuits, being in addition a percussionist, craftsman in ceramics, a cafe owner and a peace activist during the political tribal war of the 70s. Though his role in Rockers was originally meant to be central he was ultimately supplanted by Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace as lead.

It would not be until 2005 that Kiddus released his debut album – the rough edged acoustic jam Inna De Yard with guitarist Earl Chinna Smith. The French label Makasound would also put out his first electric longplayer, 2009’s Green Fa Life. It was an eclectic, interesting record slightly let down by its laissez fare live sound and mix, yet well worth owning to hear what the great man was up to.

His scarce 70s material has seen the light on two compilations: 2007’s Graduation In Zion: 1978-80 (issued by Japan’s Dub Store) and 2009’s Rocking Rebel Volumes 1 & 2 (including his original theme to Rockers - replaced by Inner Circle’s incongruously poppy We a Rockers). Now he has a second studio album titled Topsy Turvy World produced by Martin Pauen of Rubin Rockers in Cologne and featuring vintage-sounding rhythms played by no less than Aston Barrett (bass) Tyrone Downie (Hammond, piano, clavinet), Chinna (guitar) and Sticky Thompson (percussion). They are joined by members of Jin Jin (who German readers will know backed Sebastian Sturm).

This is much more of a traditional roots record than Green Fa Life - with proper 1970s instrumentation. The production is clean and crisp and you feel every rim shot in the chest. There is the slight sense of coldness and over-production that comes with recreating analogue sounds in a digital environment (Roberto Sanchez and Prince Fatty have set the retro-sonic bar rather high) but this is only a stumbling block to the fussiest purist.

Like Burning Spear Kiddus was never a conventional songwriter per se. Here he prefers to drape his wisdom over the rhythms – caring more for rhythm and repetition than rhyme. The musicians and that voice do the rest. His dreamy drawl is fairly unchanged as he sings of global upheaval on the title track (“Only Germany has the money” he says, fittingly) and how all over the world Life is A Riddim. His love of US music can be heard in a recut of the Persuaders’ A Thin Line Between Love and Hate and his romantic side in the major key Wild Child. As per his early 45s this is an album of subtlety - for reflective listening in quiet places – and it will take a few spins to reveal its secrets. But this is a superior work to Green Fa Life and it's nice to hear the man back, making up for lost time.