Gary Clail - five albums and a 12inch

Funny sometimes, how yesterday's cutting edge can become today's old hat. A case in point being some of Adrian Sherwood's 80s to mid-90s output, namely a large part of the dub and hiphop infused, industrial tinged kind of avant-funk he brewed up with the Tackhead posse. While I think that most of Sherwood's more rootical dub reggae and reggae influenced productions still hold up more than well, a large part of those avant-funk tracks on albums by Tackhead, Mark Stewart or - in this case - Gary Clail sounds a bit dated.

Still, about half the tunes on each Gary Clail album are absolute killers (tellingly, most of them are pretty dubby though), while the rest are at least highly interesting musical time capsules from (post-)Thatcherite Britain, fueled by the undeniable fire of Clail's ranting agit-prop speech-song. And Emotional Hooligan really is a great album, hands down.

Thanks a lot to nad22 for Dreamstealers, Emotional Hooligan and Escape!

Gary Clail's Tackhead Soundsystem - Tackhead Tape Time

Gary Clail & On-U Soundsystem - End Of The Century Party

Gary Clail & On-U Soundsystem - Dreamstealers

Gary Clail & On-U Soundsystem - Emotional Hooligan

Gary Clail & On-U Soundsystem - Escape 12inch

Gary Clail - Keep The Faith