8. HT SPLIFFOut Of The Earth’s Womb
This record is really special because reggae music and sound system culture in the UK was a massive deal for me, going to dances at the old Band On The Wall club in Manchester before it got moved; going to Moss Side dances and having my mind blown out. It’s a really physical and healing experience – one that led me down the road of becoming a massive reggae collector. Me and a mate had a little thing going, we used to go and play our reggae records at bars around Manchester and warm up for a few people, a few of the sound systems at Band On The Wall. It got to a point where I had so many reggae records that I thought ‘I cannot sustain this. I’m going to be living in poverty for the rest of my life if I carry on buying reggae’ but my mate found two copies of this record for 50p each. When we first listened to it together, I thought ‘this is one of the best UK reggae records I’ve ever heard. Amazing tunes, amazing production, the percussion had a different edge to it; it was the kind of stuff that you could imagine Jah Shaka would have loved to play. And for me – even though there was so many amazing reggae records I wanted to include – this is a record that people should be able to hear but unfortunately it costs about £80 second hand. Somebody needs to repress it!
