The late, great Lee 'Scratch' Perry was a master of collaboration in addition to his dub skills behind the controls, working with everyone from Keith Richards to George Clinton to The Beastie Boys to Andrew WK. The Upsetter left us with one full-length collab still to be released, an album with Vancouver experimental drone metal band New Age Doom titled Lee "Scratch" Perry's Guide to the Universe which will be out November 5 via We Are Busy Bodies.
New Age Doom sent Perry the bed tracks for the album in August of 2020 and Perry sent back his finished vocal parts just four days later. "As is our practice for remote recording, we sent Lee a long, evolving backing track with plenty of breathing room, along with minimal guidance, simply asking him to 'speak or sing about any philosophical or transcendental theme," say the band. "The resulting sermon - equal parts blessing and warning - is straight up 'Scratch.' As his long-time friend Lady Nigel Butterfly puts it: 'Really, that's how you'd get the best out of Lee - just allow him to remain one-thousand-and-one percent undiluted, because he brings it with a raw intensity every moment of every day... he's a 24/7 Truth Bomb... give him a little space and genius will happen!"
The band add, "Our intention with this collaboration was to give Lee the freedom to express his ideas fully and deeply, and to build our musical offering around his voice. He more than delivered, and we are incredibly fortunate that he graced us with such a loving and powerful message, as may be heard in the resulting album, Lee 'Scratch' Perry's Guide to the Universe. We hope it will inspire and delight listeners the same way it did for us."
In addition to Perry, the album features a number of other collaborators, including Cola Wars (aka Sloan fifth member Gregory MacDonald), saxophonist Donny McCaslin (Bowie's Blackstar), jazz trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom, MONO drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla, The Passenger on synthesizers, and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Dahle (Limblifter). They've just released "Holy Dub" from the album, which is led by Tim Lefebvre's deep-sea bass and echoing horns from Rosenboom and McCaslin, over all of which Scratch holds court.
The "Holy Dub" music video features New Age Doom laying down tracks in the studio as well as unseen concert footage of Perry. Check that out, along with another track from the album, below.
New Age Doom - Lee "Scratch" Perry's Guide to the Universe 1. Life Is An Experiment 2. Holy Wings 3. Fly In The World! 4. Holy Dub 5. Step In Space 6. Conquer The Sin
