Welcome to my World

One of Britain's most unpredictable musicians, Jah Wobble moves between musical styles like few others. After recent passions for Chinese and Japanese music, he's now taken his most ambitious journey; in 21 pieces he unravels real and imagined soundtracks. The default music is still dub – it is ‘the form that best symbolizes our yearning for the infinite’, he writes in the liner notes. And this dreamworld, with titles such as ‘China’, ‘New Delhi’, ‘Port Said’, ‘Highgate’ and the more abstract ‘Blowout’, and ‘Late 19th’, features sounds both confusing and exciting: a muezzin’s call, a jungle frog's croak, chattering unintelligible voices, traffic hum, strains of Western classical music – all created in Wobble's mind and made real in a London studio. His bass and electronics mingle with musicians from the Chinese Dub Orchestra (Clive Bell's flute and Zi-Lan Liao's Ku-cheng and one-stringed harp) and Sylvia Hallett's Serenghi trumpet. Nostalgic references to London's 90s Acid House scene accompany his motorway drives (‘M25’ and ‘M60’) with corny fuzz boxes and samplers from the dawn of electronic music, while conga and tabla beats bounce from Cadiz to Brazil, and Brian Eno-like ethereal strains pass through other locales. Putney's traffic noise and dub basslines underlie a 60s psychedelic guitar groove, more Os Mutantes than Pink Lloyd. Combined they make a complex and exhilarating soundtrack to a highly personal musical journey.