Lee 'Scratch' Perry & the Upsetters (or just 'the Upsetters'? it changes) -
Return of the Super Ape (1978)
The preceding 'Super Ape' was the first reggae/dub album I ever bought, simply because I thought the
cover was amazing and had read Perry's name mentioned somewhere as being an influence on people i admired. I did not understand the significance of the production style I was hearing, nor even the weed references on the front...
But anyway,
this album has a completely different tone from the utterly hypnotic chants and dubs of 'Super Ape', yet it still carries that unmistakably unique Scratch stamp... lots of weird noises (it sounds like he has brought a kitchens-worth of pots and pans into the studio sometimes), innovative use of scant resources and that classic foggy, pleasantly weighty sound i.e. the closest you can get to being stoned on music.
edit: also Scratch lends alot more of his MC-style rasping to this one, which always adds to the oddness. The last 'Super Ape' was entirely other singers I think, I'm guessing from his label? There are people here who will know this...
This was the last Lee Perry album to be recorded at his legendary Black Ark studio (self-built of course) and it is as fine a send off as one might expect; being recorded during what are, for most, the peak years of dub and reggae.