REVIEW: JACK JOHNSON - IN BETWEEN DUB

4/5

Dub's Up. 

Dub for your plate. Almost a year after he met the moonlight, Jack is back with a repainting of his masterpiece. All in the same week a live album from Bob Dylan ('Shadow Kingdom') joins a set list of the best rock acts releasing records. Opened by the Foo Fighters working through the grief to proclaim 'But Here We Are'. Not to mention a tale of two Bens. Folds, unfolding 'What Matters Most' for a contender of this year's best album, not to mention his first in an attic box worth of calendars. And of course, Jack Johnson's long time frequent collaborator Ben Harper with the 'Wide Open Light' of some atmospheric acoustics. Johnson boxes up a 'Yard Sale' single collaboration on that said album, change short of a cycle since Harper's last 'Maintenance'. But after last year's career highlight, 'Meet The Moonlight', with ska stars he now reggae remixes his magnum opus 'In Between Dreams' and other early career classics for more audio reverie. 

Sitting, waiting, wishing, you might not find that one, rewinding it all like the mesmerizing and vivid music video, but you will see the spirit of some 'Traffic In The Sky' as the great Lee 'Scratch' Perry sets this all off with his amazing ad-libs. Only Puffy sounds cooler...and he invented the redux that is the musical retake. Perry scratches out Johnson and Johnson classics like 'Wasting Time' and the Foo similar 'Times Like These' with Subatomic Sound System for the Jack of all acoustics who could now find an auditory home in your subwoofer. "And there's always been laugh and cry and birth and die/And boys and girls with hearts that take and give and break/And heal and grow and recreate and raise and nurture/But then hurt at times," the former pro surfer sings. Riding over the beats for your reduced, reused and recycled Marley headphones. 

Great Dennis Bovell dub's Jack in the music box crate classics like 'No Other Way' and 'Calm Down' his own, as the lapping tide of these laid back and relaxed tracks feel like the warm water of the Caribbean at your feet. All the way from the green and gold, to Jamaica Queens in New York City. The meeting of the musical minds with the Hawaiian calm of JJ making for the perfect vibe check. It's the dream of a Nightmares On Wax collaboration that truly makes this all 'Better Together' for the Don Dada like Supercat of Johnson records though. "There's no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard/No song that I could sing but I can try for your heart/Our dreams and they are made out of real things/Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned loving/Love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart/Like why are we here and where do we go, and how come it's so hard?/It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving/I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together", Jack sings. Back from a postcard from 2006 with words that sound as fresh as fruit that has just fallen from the tree of life. 

These wax nightmares are what dreams are made of, recurring on the true dub 'Breakdown' between it all. All before the Mad Professor works to 'Turn Your Love', like nuts and bolts of a Frankenstein scientist with a monster of a record that purrs more than it roars for cat calm sounds for your tranquil fleeting feelings in the sea of sleep. Another Scientist keeps us 'One Step Ahead', but it's the Yaadcore dub that 'You Can't Control (It)'. Environmental protest for the dancehall preaching, "Mom forget to tuck you in?/Make you begin a war within your head/One that you could never win/Send in the troops and insecurities/What doesn't matter in the end/So daddy told you hold your chin up son and/Understand one thing/If and when you drink/From this vast ocean/You can't control it/Nah, nah Nah, you can't control it," surrounded by all we throw in the sea like the single artwork. 

The album artwork in vibrant Johnson and Jamaican yellow is anything but mellow, waking you up to the gold glory of a genre that's slept on not only for its greatness, but the hidden messages behind the happy face of its sunny disposition. 'It's All Understood' here though on the classic closer for one of Jack Johnson's greatest hits like the boxer. Because after all, "Everyone knows what went down/Because the news was spread all over town/And fact is only what you believe/And fact and fiction work as a team/It's almost always fiction in the end/That content begins to bend/When context is never the same." Those words meaning even more now than they did back in the rain of the 'Brushfire Fairytales' of 2001...and we all know what happened to change the word later that year. Three years after the original concept of this remix record was brought to shore, it finally finds land. Paused due to the pandemic and the departure of the dear, late great Lee 'Scratch' Perry from this Astral plane world as we know and believe it. The legend surrounded by so many others bringing new light to another one truly back down to earth for the record. Dub this, the reinvention of the remix. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Traffic In The Sky (Lee "Scratch" Perry Dub)', 'Better Together (Nightmares On Wax Dub)', 'It's All Understood (Monk Dub)'.