Dub
Dub is a music genre emerged in the late 1960s in Jamaica. Originally, tracks of this genre were similar to reggae with laid-back vocals. But by the mid-70s dub had become an independent genre considered as an experimental or psychedelic kind of reggae. Dub achievements in music contributed to the culture of remixes and influenced the development of styles such as hip hop, house, drum and bass, trip hop, dub step, and many others.
Birth: 1968 Bloom: 1972
The style is typified by powerful tight bass, spatial sound and sound effects such as echo or percussions. As far as dub is derivative of reggae, its bass lines are made up according to the typical reggae canons.
Dub is considered to be a unique style emerged in the late 60s due to experiments by the Jamaican sound engineer King Tubby, who used to record reggae music. He began to record experimental tracks in a self-created new style alongside the usual reggae tracks. The main emphasis was made on the bass guitar and percussion instruments, whereas vocals were processed by various effects. Actually, the style got its name due to such sound improvisations with duplicating tracks into recordings, so the word "dub" originated from "duplicate". The earliest dub-versions of reggae compositions turned out to be the first remixes in the history of EDM (originally, these remixes were called «versions» in Jamaica, such terms as «dub» and «remix» appeared later).
The music by Jamaican producer Lee Perry heavy influenced the development and popularity of dub, because he was quite more interested in experiments with sound than King Tubby used to be. In the 70s artists created dub-versions for reggae songs or albums as a running practice. Dub became an inherently valued phenomenon. Such musicians as Keith Hudson started to record music only in this style.
Dub reached its peak in the late 70s when it finally gained the popularity in the UK and USA and some rock musicians (The Police, The Clash, Public Image Ltd, The Slits, The Pop Group) started to borrow some of the dub elements for their music.
In 1985 many dub-producers began to experiment with electronic sound with the beginning of the digital era in Jamaica, so by the end of the 90s a new wave of dub music emerged in the UK as part of the revival of traditional dub (Jah Shaka, Jah Warrior, Mixman). At that time there was a tendency of creating new music styles influenced by dub, such as ambient house (The Orb), dub-techno (Basic Channel), trip hop (Massive Attack).
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