Drummer Taikokissie takes his Dub Passengers on a second vinyl outing. Teaming up with the loose collective for a 4-track 10”, titled Tepid Sunshine. The production sounds super live, not just the playing, but also the brave and freaky dub mixing. Tunes are often thrown into delay and effects totally unexpectedly. The opening track, I Like Your Anger, for example, starts out as laidback, funky jazz, before 2 minutes in it’s dramatically dropped into a heroic dose of echo. Like N1_Sound’s recent Mantras, it recalls A Certain Ratio’s dubwise diversion, Sir Horatio, but also Doug Scharin’s H.I.M. Like a super syncopated post-rock.

The core of the unit, in this case, is a trio, with Kyotaro Hori on Trumpet and Haluna Ishigaki on bass. Hori’s horn is haunting throughout, and there’s a whole world of (Jah) Wobble in Ishigaki’s lithe lines. Sometimes they sound like Chet Baker jamming with the former PiL power house. At others they could be Bill Laswell exploring, experimenting in his dub chamber.

Three different guitarists guest on the remaining numbers. Each adding their own individual flavour. On Wall Walk, Yusuke Igarashi, who records solo as Fishing With John, precisely picks out Spanish leaning, cosmic Americana. His down home licks rocked by waves of reverb, and reduced to infinite hiss by the equivalent of King Tubby’s famous high pass filter. Kaetsu Takahashi raises drones and ringing, on How Many Years Of Joy And Suffering, that synergise with the Taikokissie’s rolling and crashing traps. Together they spin, spiral, give off sparks, like Catherine wheel fireworks over Ishigaki’s fine fusion bass runs. Napoli To Nippori juices Yuta “Deeply” Fukai’s cool clipped jazz chords though wild dropouts and whirlpools of phase.

THIS WAS A TOP DUBWISE VINYL TIP. 

It’s a real grower. I’ve had it soothing my brow on the school run for the last couple of weeks, and it still sounds fresh on every spin. It’s a vinyl only release, there’s no Bandcamp, but you do get a download code with the record. 

Koyoto’s marvellous Meditations also still have copies in stock. 

As a nice little postscript…  I sent this review to Taikokissie, and got a lovely email back, in part confirming the post-rock connection:

“I love H.I.M and Jah Wobble. Other than classic roots reggae, my biggest influences were the Dylan Group, John Spencer Blues Explosion, and the Dub Narcotic Sound System. When it comes to trumpets, Kondo Toshinori, Nils Petter Molvaer, Rob Mazurek, Arve Henriksen… are also a must. My dub jazz anthems are Isotope 217’s The Unstable Molecule and Little Tempo’s Ron Riddim.”