Dub Gabriel

Picture a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn rooftop, somewhere in the not-too-distant future. The scene is drenched in a smog-orange sunset haze as a large spaceship, bristling with speakers and pumping bass like a soundsystem truck from 1970s Kingston touches down. The spectacle attracts a dusted assemblage of Rastafarian monks and Bedouin shamans, coming out of the woodwork to call our collective ancestors like they’ve done since the beginning of time. This is close to the scene evoked by the music on Bass Jihad, the second major effort by the resident Brooklyn DJ/producer/mad scientist Dub Gabriel.

Like Bill Laswell, whose Material project served as an early inspiration, Dub Gabriel makes trance music in the most traditional sense. Esoteric, organic time-signatures are woven together with cosmic drones, soaring ambient textures and a global fusion of indigenous instruments, taking the listener on a deep rhythmic trip. Production-wise, the eleven tracks on Bass Jihad represent a vast improvement on the Gabe’s sonically ambitious first album Ascend, the vision of which is fully realized here with industrial, spacey trance-inducing dub drenched in layers of echo and reverb. The sound is ancient. From the opening “War in the Poppy Fields,” the listener is dropped right into the mix, with little introduction or warning of what’s to come.

Dub Gabriel’s musical sensibility is firmly rooted in middle-eastern styles and on the album’s best tracks, deftly played percussion, string and reed instruments twang and float over mountainous, distorted drum rhythms so funky it takes at least a few listens to grasp it. Always present underneath it all is the bass, either filtered to sound like an electrified udu (a north-african drum resembling a long-necked clay pot and ringing with earthy, metallic tones) or adding twisting, liquid squelches in the space between beats. Mostly it is of the sub-sonic variety, providing that deep resonance found in traditional Jamaican nyabinghi chants - the kind you feel in your bones or in your soul.

On the hypnotic “Saaz Remains the Same” the music does battle with what sounds like the prattle of German tourists. But if the title didn’t make it clear, the music does: Gabe and company are all business here, on a mission to take you on some serious sonic journeys. This isn’t background music. “Bass is the place” brings the first half of the album to a soft descent, and that’s where things get really interesting. As the shimmering synths of “Bass” fade out like gentle waves we’re suddenly hit with a towering tsunami – a three-note organ drone set off by a low, gurgling didg drone that takes over the listener completely. The drums hit four bars in and we’re launched into orbit. This is “The Garden of Light,” probably Bass Jihad’s most stunning moment. The ancient sounds of the ney, a bamboo flute older than memory soar over everything, evoking the wide open expanse of a Himalayan plateau, or the mountains of Venus. “Rumi Go Through Me” lands us back on earth, still starry-eyed, with Gabriel channeling Augustus Pablo over a slow staccato percussion and majestic dubbed-out bass rhythm.

Taking the album out in style is the 15-minute “Return of the Urban Mystic,” confirming Bass Jihad as future trance music of the highest order. It’s not your everyday musical diversion, but like anything worth your time it rewards repeated listens in the right state of mind.