Piper Street Sound and Atlanta-based Roots Reggae outfit E.R.E, or Eclectic Roots Ensemble, released their album Feelin’ It on April 21st (2014). This EP of 6 Dub re-imaginings takes their rootsy, old-school sound to new depths. With Piper Street Sound at the board, the tunes take on added dimensions, with 3 deep dubs and 3 Latin Cumbia-Dub versions.

Babylon Can’t Stop This Dub takes the original earnest riddim of Good Seeds and morphs it, adding space and dimension with huge reverbs and atmospheric effects. The nyabinghi style percussion and drums takes on density and rhythmic dimension with delays. Ray-gun synth stings take this heady tune into alternate realities.
The Cumbia version of Babylon Can’t Stop This Dub focuses on the rhythm section, especially the conga/bongo/binghi drums, with added Latin hand percussion. The tune retains its spacey, dubbed-out feel but acquires a trance-like marching pace via shakers and guiro.

Down in the Valley was one of Feelin’ It’s more upbeat tunes. In Down in The Dubby, PSS plays with drummer Rod Breland’s up-tempo steppers beat with delays, sample/repeats, and Dub-style added pauses. Bakeem’s vocals are chopped, flanged, delayed, and artfully dropped in place to great effect.
The Cumbia version of Down in the Dubby features a lazy, sliding shekere feel and natural hand drums offset by twitchy tech-step shuffling of the original rhythm and pulsing key delays, punctuated by strategic vocal drops.

Positive, one of Feelin’ It’s most dread riddims, made for perfect fodder for PSS’s way with f/x. In Positiversion, the plaintive, ascending melody shared by Paschal’s keys and the surf-rock tone of guitarist Dave Canis play nicely against walls of washed-out static hum and piling rhythmic complexity. Waves of accumulated delay noise and thunderous spring reverbs combine to otherworldly effect.
The Cumbia version of Positiversion combines interesting conga patterns, natural shekere, guira, and cabasa sounds with key-tone synth bass reconstructions that slowly degrade into sizzling bit rot.