Elsewhere: Looking for that bigtime bass-boost

By GRAHAM REID

Sledgehammer Dub: Niney the Observer

Label: Motion/Chant

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Subtitled "In the streets of Jamaica", this is a gritty but shuffle-dance collection of Niney tracks from the 70s, most featuring his Soul Syndicate band but a couple with the equally fine Cimmarons. Unlike the loping and dark dubs of, say, Burning Spear or the mashed-up sonic revisions of Lee "Scratch" Perry, Niney - who got his name as an abbreviation of "Nine Fingers" after he lost a thumb - worked the single-length song,and many of the tracks here are dubs from a little-known Dennis Brown album.

So the 14 tracks are deep but of pop-song accessibility, and of course titles are immaterial. Just bang it on, locate the bass-boost button and start the head nod thing. A bonus is the extensive, historical and biographical liner notes by David Katz, author of the Perry biography People Funny Boy.

* * *

Dennis Brown: The Promised Land 1977-79

Label: Blood and Fire/Chant

(Herald rating: * * * * )

The late Brown - often dubbed the Crown Prince of Reggae, and who died in '99 - has undergone something of a rediscovery. There have been excellent compilations (The Ultimate Collection and the double-disc anthology Money in Pocket) and some of his many original albums have been regularly appearing on disc. This collection has a narrower focus, just two years when he was sometimes working with Niney the Observer and delivering terrific albums such as Words of Wisdom, essential in any reggae collection.

One of the smoothest, most deeply soulful of reggae singers, Brown's Rasta faith most often took the musical form of devotion and forgiveness rather than judgment and damnation - which perhaps explains why he was so popular, especially in this period when he was in fine vocal form. In later years there were poorer returns but this 17-track collection - essentially his Joseph's Coat of Many Colours album plus extra tracks and versions - is a reminder of what a generous, open-hearted singer he was.

Much niceness from a reggae great who never really had his due.

* * *

The Royals: Pick Up the Pieces

Pressure/Chant

(Herald rating: * * * )

The liner notes on this 20-track compilation say the Royals "seem somehow to have remained the last great unsung Jamaican vocal group from reggae's 'golden age' in the sixties and seventies and their work is still relatively unknown outside of a small coterie of serious reggae students".

True, I'd put my hand up as serious student, but clearly the coterie doesn't include me. I've never heard of them. But it's never to late to learn, as they say, and clearly these guys are pretty special in a cruisy, lightly lovers' rock JA style. They were a flexible line-up around Roy Cousins and a couple of Errols (one of whom confusingly was known as either Errol Nelson or Errol Wilson) and worked soul-pop manoeuvres with a little Rasta-ethic scattered around. There's the usual suspects in the bands (some Wailers, organ from Ansel Collins, Earl Lindo and others, trumpeter Bobby Ellis etc), they recorded in the cream of JA studios (Channel One, King Tubby's, Dynamic) and the material is uniformly mellow and often delightfully melodic.

Were they a great, overlooked JA vocal group, however? Well, they don't cut it alongside the darker and brooding outfits like the early Burning Spear, the Congos or Culture, or groups like the Melodians and Abyssinians. But they have an undeniable charm, Cousins is superb and some days summer feels just around the corner. Welcome to the small coterie.

* * *

Various: Hustle! Reggae Disco

Soul Jazz/Chant

(Herald rating: * * )

Faintly silly but enjoyable collection of less-than-famous 80s UK and Jamaican disco-reggae acts covering hits of the period such as Anita Ward's Ring My Bell (here given a weird quasi folksy-operatic makeover by Blood Sisters), Michael Jackson's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough (slowed down and levelled out by Derrick Laro and Trinity in a worryingly non-urgent treatment), and Rapper's Delight by Xanadu and Sweet Lady, about which the less said the better. Elsewhere there's the gorgeously named Carol Cool reconfiguring Diana Ross's Upside Down and much other camp, kitsch nonsense besides. Oddities probably best enjoyed as one-offs on radio.