NEWS

Smoking My Ganja (Rootikal Mix EP)

Capital Letters
‘Smoking My Ganja’ (Rootikal Remix EP)

With a revived Capital Letters once more performing sell out shows across Europe and the enthusiastic reception afforded to their “Reality” album released by Reggae Archive Records at the start of the year, we decided to give their fans old and new something special with the release of a brand new 12” EP.
The recordings are from the same 1985 session that gave us the “Reality” album and feature remixes of two songs that will be familiar to anyone who has that album, “Smoking My Ganja” and “Reality”. When we went back to the session tapes, we discovered an additional track that wasn’t available for the album and that track ‘Housebreaker’ makes its debut here.
Who better to take charge of remix duties than Reggae Archive’s regular collaborator, Rootikal’s David Hill with engineering and studio space provided by UK reggae legend Nick Manasseh. They took the original multi tracks and welded them into sound system anthems. You could imagine these new mixes would have been cut on a hundred dub plates if the tracks had been finished and mixed this way back in ’85.
We kick proceedings off with “Smoking My Ganja”, a track transformed from the familiar commercial anthem we all know and stripped of its pop sensibilities, the bass driven gritty roots monster that always lurked beneath is finally unleashed. Propelled by a foreboding bass line the vocal is darker and rootsier. It conjures up the claustrophobia of those dark, smoke filled sound sessions of a past age, hundreds of people each locked into their own individual bass cocoon. The dub plate mix with its urgent, heavy oppressive bass really does reinvent the anthem, it’s now hypnotic and relentless, and a lost Shaka special that never was. For the drum and bass mix it’s back to basics with the song pared down to the essentials and yet remaining totally riveting. The whole side is addictive and plays like one long disco mix, Rootikal has achieved the rare feet of improving upon a well loved classic.
“Housebreaker” is as heavy as its name suggests with these heavy, heavy mixes, forget breaking into a house you could literally demolish it. Pounding away with jackhammer bass and wrecking ball drums, this pair conjure up proper early eighties dub vibes. The dark arts of proper dub mixing haven’t been lost in the digital age, they’ve just been waiting for the right moment and here, spread across the two mixes are nine minutes of right moments.
“Reality” was a highlight of the album that bears it’s name and a tune well deserving of two more cuts from the skilful hands of David Hill and Nick Manasseh. The vocal is proper old school British Roots Reggae at its finest, another lost art that is finally making a most welcome comeback with the reformed Capital Letters in the vanguard. The record is perfectly rounded off with an excellent dub counterpart that maintains the consistent high standard of the earlier tracks; this EP is strictly killer with absolutely no filler.
Capital Letters “Smoking My Ganja” (The Rootikal Remix EP) is released on Reggae Archive Records on the 7th of July 2014 on high quality vinyl and digital download, available from all leading stockists.

ARTIST: Capital Letters
TITLE: Smoking My Ganja (Rootikal Remix EP)
RELEASE DATE: 7th July 2014
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: Sugar Shack Records / Shellshock
FORMAT: Vinyl EP / Mini Album and Digital Download
CAT NO / BARCODE: RARC013V / 5052571055618

https://reggaearchiverecords.bandcamp.com/album/smoking-my-ganja-rootikal-remix-ep