Champagne Dub got together in 2018. Releasing a record, Drops, on Faith And Industry, the label run out of Stoke Newington’s Total Refreshment Centre by Kristian Craig Robinson, aka Capitol K. Their follow-up, Rainbow, in shops this November, has been signed to On The Corner, helping the London imprint to celebrate 10 genre-baiting years in business. Consisting of The Comet Is Coming’s Maxwell “Betamax” Hallett on rhythms, Italian Ruth Goller on bass, Ed Briggs on home-made, DIY electronics, and Peruvian performance artist, Mr. Noodles on the mic, the quartet are now working in the studio of marvellous Malcolm Catto, founder of The Heliocentrics. The mighty Dilip “Demus” Harris ably assisting at the desk. They’ve also enlisted Maxwell’s dad, legendary musicologist Clive Bell, on assorted wind instruments… shakuhachi, melodica, and toy panpipes. The pair having previously collaborated on a brilliant release for Byrd Out. 

The album opens, sets the scene, with Sink. All shaken percussion, and snaking twists of sound. Sirens and reeds, melodies that hint at a Middle Easten / North African location. The bottom-end a drone. The mix, deep, mystical, stoned. Summoning Bill Laswell’s seismic, global ancient meets modern explorations / excavations. The sort of thing that Clive’s frequent collaborator, Jah Wobble, might add bass to. Or that William S. Burroughs might have “rapped” over on his way to The Western Lands. Calling on the myths of Hasan-i Sabbah, “The Old Man Of The Mountain”, his Ḥashshāshīyīn. Telling tall tales, bent out of shape on on bug powder dust and mugwump jism. Its churning groove some seriously heavy psychedelic shit. 

Wet Drip is a wonky ritual rattling of clipped, echoed chimes and jungle, monkey, shrieks and shouts. Full Moon Placenta, its title suggesting some kind of voodoo, is a slow motion nyabinghi grounation. Weird and wired, with its tones stretched, pitch pulled down. Scrubbing boisterously updates the `80s punk funk of Rip, Rig, & Panic, On-U Sound’s New Age Steppers, Vivian Goldman’s seminal John Lydon-produced single, Private Armies / Launderette. A cross cultural rub-a-dub collision, with a young Neneh Cherry-like nursery rhyme lyric. Unexpected blasts of bright pop synths interrupting its great growling, rumbling, and roaring, for a definite “Alternative” dancefloor hit. Refreshement Guy also sheds its dread beginnings, quickly becoming funky and fun. A beat-juggled, contrabass basement boogie, with a go-go-esque groove. A vintage Mo Wax moment, acid Acid Jazz, with sorta serrated shortwave signal SFX and a mad, potty Patrick Adams-worthy synth solo. 

Cumulonimbus takes its name, perhaps, from the sustained synth-line that cuts through the tune, on a  spiralling trajectory toward the heavens. The piece’s poetry and broken syncopation like a live organic take on the leftfield, forward-thinking, turn-of-the-millenium hip hop, such as Anti-Pop Consortium’s High Priest’s Disorientaton. Chanco Vaca initially drops back to darker droning, boasting an uneasy intro of layered, atmospheric, organ, bass, and guitar, before its bulbous beat bursts forth. Chanted vocals recall Cassie Ojay – ex of Golden Teacher – and the track invokes Dennis Bovell’s radical rework of that band’s Like A Hawk – conjuring a (David) Lynchian obeah, cumbia mutant. The closing Rainbow, in contrast to its colourful, hopeful title, rides industrial timpani, and buzzing, fuzzed, feedback. Doom metal meets free jazz meets Mezzanine-era Massive Attack. Full of the menace of Inertia Creeps, for example. 

Champagne Dub can’s Rainbow can be pre-ordered now, care of On The Corner.