My Crucial Selection is Threat to Creation by Creation Rebel and the New Age Steppers. I have chosen this album as it was one of the first dub albums I bought as a young record collector and it shaped my love of dub music and the UK sound. I still love bathing in its deep bass lines, sonic spacey soundscapes and percussive loops which were experimental for the time.
This early, ground breaking dub album, expertly produced by Adrian Sherwood of On-U Sound in 1981, transcends time and genre. Released a good ten years before Dub Syndicate’s ‘Stoned Immaculate’, the album uses the elements of 1970s dub with its heavy bass loops and reverberating echoes, but adds in lo-fi effects and psychedelic rhythm guitar with distant ethereal vocals. Threat to Creation laid the groundwork for future UK bass genres like digi-dub, jungle and dubstep.
Threat to Creation represents the distinctive and groundbreaking point in UK bass culture where punk and reggae collide. The album is a true mashup of the London music scene at the time – bringing together Creation Rebel; guitarist ‘Crucial’ Tony Phillips, drummer Charles ‘Eskimo’ Fox, and percussionist/vocalist Veral ‘Magoo’ Rose. With the New Age Steppas – Ari Up of The Slits on piano and organ and Keith Levene of Public Image Limited on guitar. Members of African Head Charge – bass player George Oban, Eskimo Fox and Style Scott on drums layer the multiple percussive rhythms and meditative bass lines that draw you deep into the music. On-U Sound shaped the landscape of dub and reggae music in the UK and beyond and its myriad offshoots.
Impressively, Creation Steppas recorded and released a new album in 2023 which has some elements from Threat to Creation. Check out Hostile Environment on On-U Sound, also produced by Adrian Sherwood.
Threat to Creation is a crucial selection that transcends time and genre and will stay in my crate forever. Dub it!
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