While retrospective releases from Talisman, Black Roots and the three-volume Bristol Reggae Explosion series have made it plain that Mike Darby’s Bristol Archive label is prepared to go the extra mile in the name of quality home-grown UK reggae, they’ve pulled all the stops out to get this one together.
While his chequered career has stumbled on for over three decades, Bristol reggae mainstay JOSHUA MOSES has bequeathed a catalogue that’s fragmented to say the least. Official releases have been few and far between and the job of compiling this 15-track affair has hardly been helped by the fact that many of his studio sessions weren’t archived at the time.
However, while phrases involving ‘needle’ and ‘haystack’ come to mind, as soon as you clap ears on this self-explanatory anthology, you realise that the perseverance was surely worth it. Despite being pieced together from a series of live and studio sessions spanning 1978-2003, ‘Joshua To Jashwa’ is a highly consistent, not to mention potent collection.
The two sides of Moses’ defining ‘Africa (Is Our Land)’ bookend the LP. Originally released on the More Cut label in 1978, copies of the original 7” can now fetch over £100, so it’s great that it’s finally out on CD. All that aside, it’s a classic slice of urgent, militant roots’n’culture (“don’t let the heathens use you/ don’t let the wicked men fool you”) produced by Dennis ‘Blackbeard’ Bovell. The A-side slides neatly into a sparse, Niney The Observer-style dub, although the official ‘version’ (‘Home’) is a suitably shape-shifting dub fest in the best possible sense of the term.
A second notable Dread-imbued Rasta 45 from the archives comes courtesy of the UK Scientist-produced ‘Rise Up’ from 1983, though the slower, insistent beat is more in keeping with the dancehall-style riddims in vogue at the time. A brace of live recordings from the mid-80s, meanwhile, suggest Moses’ fire ‘n’ brimstone sound leant itself seamlessly to the live circuit. The 1986 recording of ‘House of Dread’ (featuring fellow Avon reggae steppers Restriction) has one of the bounciest grooves you’ll hear this –or any other –year.
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Hearteningly, the more contemporary recordings suggest Moses has managed to update his traditional reggae sound with credibility to spare. Built around a strange, breathless vocal sample before falling into a tuff groove, ‘Steel’ takes some commendable chances, but soon gets under your skin as does the truly surprising ‘Distant Guns’ which does a neat job in melding a redemptive delta blues to Moses’ Dread beat an’ blood to create something truly spiritual. The fact both tracks date from this side of Y2K is especially heartening.
Yes, kingdoms can rise, fall and lose their souls to the banks in the time it’s taken for ‘Joshua To Jashwa’ to become a reality, but then you know the old adage about not rushing genius, don’t you? Ultimately, Joshua Moses is more than deserving of this timely retrospective and some long-overdue kudos, so all credit to those charged with seeing it through to fruition.
Bristol Archive Records online
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