Legendary Jamaican sound engineer, Hopeton “Overton” Brown aka Scientist has just remixed L.A. trio, ASHRR. As far as I know he doesn’t do that many remixes, and rarely steps outside his chosen genre. Famous instead for his ground-breaking dub versions of countless reggae tracks. In 2002 he worked on William Onyeabor’s Body & Soul – which was a favourite at Manchester Balearic institution, Aficionado, way, way before Luaka Bop and the rest of the world woke up to William’s eccentric electronic genius. That same year, Death In Vegas had Scientist also take a shake at Scorpio Rising, Richard Fearless’ collaboration with Oasis’ Liam Gallagher. More recently, Hopeton hooked up with Khruangbin. Andrew Weatherall spun his re-rubs of both Rules and Como Te Quiero on the radio. In  2020, he also contributed to Italian dub don, Gaudi’s celebration of 100 Years Of Theremin. Earlier this year, London label, Mysticisms, hired DJN4 & AKI AKI to breakbeat bolster Scientist’s own Step It Up, for a 10” in their on-going excellent Dubplate series, Canada’s Shella Records reissued Ruffy & Tuffy’s wonky and weird, If The 3rd World War Is A Must, while Multi Culti co-founder, Dreems, released an E.P. of his gear brilliantly reworked by Mr. Brown. 

Now based in The States, where he’s been for decades, Scientist continues to add his magic to albums by artists such as Hemptress. However, he’s been learning and fine honing his trade since the late `70s, when he was a teenage protege of the one and only King Tubby. Blagging his way, by doing odd jobs in Tubby’s electronic repair shop, Hopeton practised on the studio board in moments of downtime, while also attempting to design his own console. At the age of sweet 16 Errol Mais, aka Jah Bible, gave him is first shot at mixing some dubs, for Mais’ label, Roots Tradition (1). This was 1976. In `79 Scientist moved to Joseph and Ernest Hookim’s Channel One and there transformed tracks recorded with the Roots Radics, and produced by Volcano Sound System’s Henry “Junjo” Lawes, and Linvall Thompson. In `82, he joined Tuff Gong, before emigrating to Maryland in `85. 

Those early `80s sides, laid down at Channel One and mixed by Scientist at Tubby’s, had a huge, huge impact on me as youth. In the UK the results were released as 12s and LPs on Greensleeves, a label run out Shepherd’s Bush by Chris Cracknell and Chris Sedgwick. Records that came in custom sleeves, iconically illustrated by very talented Tony McDermott (2). Full colour cartoons that chronicle reggae’s history, from calypso to punky reggae party. Featuring caricatures of famous folks, like The Pioneers, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Decker, Rico Rodriguez, Bob Marley, The Wailers and Wailers Band, John Lydon, Elvis Costello, and Sly & Robbie. 

Me and my mates had gone from The Specials and 2-Tone, to UB40, and then reggae “proper”. We had limited knowledge, limited access, and limited funds. When we had the cash, we picked up the odd bit of vinyl – sides by the likes of Dillinger, Lone Ranger, Eek-A-Mouse, and a lot of bargains from “cut-out” bins – and due to the covers the Greensleeves stuff stood out. We pooled what we had, swapping things between us, and the taping of David Rodigan on the radio became a ritual. Together we’d listen back to the shows, and banter about the big new tunes. When I was 15, a guy called Gary Staples gave me a cassette copy of Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires (3). I took it with me on a family holiday, to a Butlins somewhere on the coast, and had it on my Walkman constantly. 

The album opens with a maniacal laugh. Revox reels rewind, spin, squeak and screech like colony of bats, immediately instilling a sense of voodoo and dread. The bass and beats are slow and sludgy, suggesting Frankenstein’s monster on the march. Light comes in the form of flickers of rhythm guitar, sirens, and sonar blips. Haunting horns. Scientist took the wholly organic backing tracks and filtered and fazed them so that they sounded completely synthetic. In places metallic and razor sharp. Packed with proto-techno tones (4). Reducing wah-wah licks to funky scratching. Stretching 6-string riffs into infinity. Snares explode. Bass-lines grumble and growl. A lonely cowbell keeping time. I’m sure that I hadn’t heard anything like it, but it didn’t seem experimental. Rather totally accessible. I got lost in it, and spent most the week with my Walkman on.

Scientist I guess introduced me to the art of “deep listening”. The ghosts of the original instruments could be heard way, way down in the mix, like a faded memory. Their almost absence somehow adding more emotional weight. Something to do with the fact that they were nearly forgotten. It left me wondering could only I hear them? Was this intentional, or a mistake? 

“Lord God Scientist, this one too hot!”

The snatches of vocals, free of the context of song, let you make up your own story. These isolated emotions, amplified in echo, were either romantic, wounded and wronged, or calling for peace and overstanding. Your Teeth In My Neck – Michael Prophet’s Love & Unity reworked – still sends shivers, gives me goosebumps. 

“Some men take money and make big enemy, while I man take love and make good friend…”

While the music is twisted and turned, the mood is defiant, determined. A shout of no compromise, no sell out, and something to stick on the deck every time I weaken, or think I’m straying from a righteous path. Not following my heart. It felt like, still feels like, a battle hymn. 

“I man is here to teach you what’s right from wrong.”

Plague Of Zombies – a version of Johnny Osbourne’s He Can Turn The Tide – with its plaintive picking and “All he asks of men, and men, and men, is that we give each other love”, sealed the deal (5). It was in tracks, and lines, like these, where my bond with reggae was really born. Since I was at such a formative age, for me, the album defined what dub was…

Molten, bottomless bass. Flexing, bowed, wobbling like a length of steel placed under stress. Gripped at each end by opposing forces. Beats so heavy that they themselves conjure struggle. Then there’s these characteristic, wet sonic splashes. The brass often just a brief, distant spectre. The high pass filter turning everything, slowly, inside out. I’m no expert, so I don’t know if there were other productions around at the time that were similar. If, for example, this was simply down to available tech (6). However, by the artist’s own admission, much of his music was determined by experimentation, accidents and lucky fuck ups, and these are sounds that I associate solely with Scientist. Since I’ve ended up such a music nut, this introduction / discovery was life-changing. The beginning of an obsession with bass. For me, electro was all about the TR-808 boom, and when I first heard a house record, its stripped back sound seemed only another form, and extension of dub. 

The first Scientist record I actually bought / owned, was his Heavyweight Dub Champion, which had been released a year earlier, in 1980. So by the time I picked it up, it was not quite, “Brand new”, but still very much “Good for you, put on your dancin’ shoe.” Its rhythms – all Barrington Levy originals – are reduced to random collisions. Drops into delayed drums. While the mixes were stark, superficially spartan, nothing, however, sits still, static. The details, each smashed snare, each rattling rimshot, are always changing, morphing, mutating. Something new always seems to be going on. Firing flashes, crashes, of mistreated spring reverb thunder and lightning. Spinning in snippets of trebly guitar. Only the bass holding the groove down. Dancehall nursery rhymes are deconstructed, and while there are upbeat moments – “Girl, I like how you kiss me” – much of if feels melancholy. Lines from love songs – “I said why did you leave me?” – are questions, left hanging, unanswered, in the ether. Harbouring a sense of hurt, betrayal, and self-pity that spoke to my then unrequited virgin heart. Seconds Away might be its finest, truest, moment. 

“There are many changes in life, changes in every little thing…”

`81, though, seems to have THE year for Scientist…. There were loads more LPs: Dub Landing, In The Kingdom Of Dub, Scientific Dub, World At War… but I have to confess that only one of these is sitting on my shelves. Scientist Meets The Space Invaders (7). Its Red Shift being the standout for me. 

Ranking Dread’s Fattie Boom Boom and Johnny Osbourne’s Back Off were both big hit singles, and both mixed by Scientist. His name proudly printed on the record labels, as a definite selling point. The former’s PG-rated slackness came accompanied by buzzing sitar-like keys, and a super hypnotic dub. I had no idea what the latter was going on about. Googling “Ringcraft” now, my guess is that it’s all about fighting and crime. At the time, full of threat, it seemed to be a spell to ward off Obeah, the evil eye. Both were instant South London youth club classics.  

Then there was Toyan’s How The West Was Won – toasts over repurposed tracks like Wailing Souls’ Bandits Taking Over, that talked of trouble in the dance and, again, called for some much needed unity (8).

I’m fairly certain that Scientist also had his hands all over the faders for Clint Eastwood & General Saint’s Another One Bites The Dust – which must have been the biggest reggae record that year – you heard it absolutely everywhere. However, he’s not credited (9).

I’ve obviously stacked up some serious Scientist vinyl since my teens, essentials such as Cornell Campbell’s classic rude boy warning, Bandulu (10), Johnny Osbourne’s Love Is Universal – a saxophone-led personal plea for polyamory that Scientist reshaped into something called Dangerous Match #1 (11), the lewd brags and boasts of Billy Boyo’s oft sampled, One Spliff A Day (12), Bunny Lie Lie’s Babylonian, which I pulled from a Jah Shaka playlist, and Tristan Palmer’s Ossie Thomas-produced Tek A Set, whose dub is dark gurgling dancehall, slithering and shivering to Sci-Fi melodies, and set to a kick like a knock-out sucker punch… Plus I also have a couple of  comps / collections… the decidedly dodgy titled, Dub Off “Har” Blouse & Skirt, and The Dub Album They Didn’t Want You To Hear! (13). However, the records that I bought, his mixes, way back when, are totally unique and forever treasured touchstones. 

Scientist’s dub of ASHRR’s Fizzy is out now on Ralph Lawson’s 20:20 Vision. 

NOTES

1 – The results were collected on a cracking Blood & Fire compilation, whose brilliant Steve Barrow -penned sleeve notes I have partly cribbed from here.

2- Tony went on to do a similarly terrific job for Neil Fraser / Mad Professor.

3 – Gary would later perform and record under the name Jooxie Nice.

4 – When Eno gave his famous lectures concerning the use of the studio as an instrument, he cited dub reggae and the only truly electronic music.

5 – The vocal from this track has been sampled tons of times – Original Rockers’ Push Push immediately springs to mind.

6 – The bulk of the reggae that I buy is not from the `80s but rather `90s digidub and `70s roots. Well, that’s my excuse.

7 – This is a much-loved record, worth it for McDermott’s cracking cover alone, with Weatherall a big fan of the track, Laser Attack, and Richard Fearless even going so far as to cover De Materialise. 

8 – The Grid’s Richard Norris has said that this is his one of his favourite reggae records.

9 – In the decades that have passed these credits have become a serious problem. Since he was so young, hardly in his 20s, and un-business savvy, his unscrupulous label and producers have sought to push him out of the picture. Recent reissues have removed Scientist’s name altogether, which seems, frankly, criminal.

10 – Where London Techno trio Bandulu got their name.

11 – Dangerous Match #2 can be found on the flip of Hugh Mundell’s Rasta Have The Handle.

12 – Sampled by Lovecraft for TZ 10 – a single released on an R&S offshoot, which Weatherall charted in one of the UK’s music weeklies, probably The NME.

13 – I bought both of these comps for tracks included in the series of Weatherall tribute mixes, titled A Dub For Auntie Audrey.