«500-Push-Up» is an unlikely match between northern Findland and Kingston, Jamaica. On the Finnish side electronics wizard Sasu Ripatti, aka Vladislav Delay, who moves freely between old-school electronica culture, the soundscaping, the experimental paths of Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood, ghostly clubbing anthems, minimalism, pop, jazz. On the Jamaican side, there is the most prolific rhythm section of drummer Sly Dunbar and bass player Robbie Shakespeare. Norwegian trumpeter player Nils-Petter Molvær is responsible for this match. Molvær had been asked by the Jamaicans to join them and he invited Delay, who has been exploring various iterations of the dub culture vs. Electronica for more than two decades now, alongside guitar player Eivind Aarset to tag along. Their jam sessions were mixed and mostly produced by Vladislav Delay, («Nordub», Okeh, 2018), followed by an extensive tour.
Delay visited Kingston again in January 2019 and spent some days at The Anchor studios with Dunbar and Shakespeare. Delay, who is also a drummer, brought with him few cymbals and other percussion instruments and asked Dunbar to play on these unfamiliar instruments, He also recorded some voice takes and series of atmospheric field recordings, and got the blessing of Dunbar and Shakespeare to do whatever hat he wanted with the recordings. Back in Finland, Delay experimented with these recordings, edited, mixed and overdubbed it in the comfort of quiet of his studio, based on the island of Hailuoto in the Baltic Sea.
Delay’s reconstructions of his sessions with Dunbar and Shakespeare avoid consciously all clichés of dub music, as the obnoxious echoing delay effect. You can still trace the massive, hypnotic pulse that is so identified with dub, but this meditative rhythmic pattern is now being fed by a strict diet of arctic herbs, colored, mutated, and disturbed by inventive electronic manipulations, noises, and distortions. Only the two bonus pieces to the disc and download version of this album flirt passionately with the familiar dub groove.
«500-Push-Up» a sound as an inspired sonic-philosophical essay on the spirit of the Jamaican groove and the ghost of reggae uprooted from its natural ecosystem and transformed into a futuristic post-industrial territory. The «500-Push-Up» trip may activate your feet and mind in many ways you have not thought possible.
Eyal Hareuveni
Vladislav Delay (elec, samp, perc), Sly Dunbar (dr), Robbie Shakespeare (b)
