Dub music developed in Jamaica during the late 60s and 70s as King Tubby, Lee “Scratch” Perry and other sound engineers began to rearrange and augment existing reggae tracks, through the use of the mixing desk and other developing technologies. Far from simply slapping on effects onto other people’s works, the pioneers of dub regarded their tools as instruments in their own right. Backing tracks are largely stripped to a backbone of bass and drums, manipulated to emphasise the lower end frequencies, and to bring out new sonic elements in the percussion. Splashes of guitars and horns are dubbed in and out of the mix, sometimes spiralling off into a haze of echo and enveloping distortion. Vocals break in and cut off mid-sentence, before otherworldly effects take them and raise them up again like ghosts of their former selves.
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