Thanks for the tip. I found a handful of projects on BMD's site that I'll grab. On first listen, I'm not as sold on the Clash dub mixes as you are, I think because they're too reverent. Listen to them next to the Sandinista dub tracks and they're so much more radical. I'm glad to have BMD's tracks as a compelling alternative history and will listen again with your notes in mind, but on first listen, the Clash gave us the most compelling dub Clash.
Alex, totally fair read. I get the reverence comment, though I’d argue that restraint is part of the ghostliness I was drawn to. *Sandinista!* is pure dub chaos, yeah. But honestly, if Black Market is stripping out almost everything but the vocals and rebuilding the instrumentation from scratch into reggae arrangements, how it that *not* radical? It's honestly more radical than those *Sandinista!* dub plates. Appreciate the thoughtful engagement—it means a lot.
Admittedly, dub is one of my favorite sounds and the music I write to, so the Sandinista tracks resonate harder with me. We're using "radical" in two different ways, both valid and equally wrong. You're right that dub tracks that sound like dub tracks aren't that radical, but I think most dub is itself radical as the producer dumps most of the trappings of a song and builds something new and psychedelic out of those pieces. I get the radical gesture of another producer remaking Clash music, but it also feels a little like fan fic to make Strummer's vocal the North Star around which tracks are arranged. Still, Black Market shows skills and a thoughtful engagement with the songs, so my quibble's more about the tracks as dub than the tracks as cool music. Thanks for turning me on Black Market Dub.
Totally fair to love the *Sandinista!* dubs—they were radical and messy in a way that only The Clash could pull off at the time. But calling Black Market’s work “fan fic” because it centers Strummer’s vocal? That’s a stretch. It’s not fan service, it’s reconstruction. The original vocal is raw material, not holy relic. The point wasn’t worship, but recontextualization.
Black Market isn’t fantasizing. He’s arguing. With the originals, with the politics, with the production. That’s not imitation. That’s art.
Glad you dug into it anyway. But these tracks are more than "cool music." They're conversation starters. This one included.
I agree that it's not fan service, but that's not how I think of fan fic. I think of it as fans proposing or creating alternate possibilities. In this case, it's one where Strummer largely defines the band, and Black Market creates new music that does, as you say, ask a series of "what if ..." questions and suggest new ways to hear these songs.
One thing that occurred to me while listening to Black Market's dub tracks is that Sublime might never have got off the ground in the timeline Black Market proposes because their redundancy would have been obvious.
By the way, I had a moment of envy when I read, "The results weren’t just versions, they were visions." Nice.
Thanks for the tip. I found a handful of projects on BMD's site that I'll grab. On first listen, I'm not as sold on the Clash dub mixes as you are, I think because they're too reverent. Listen to them next to the Sandinista dub tracks and they're so much more radical. I'm glad to have BMD's tracks as a compelling alternative history and will listen again with your notes in mind, but on first listen, the Clash gave us the most compelling dub Clash.
Alex, totally fair read. I get the reverence comment, though I’d argue that restraint is part of the ghostliness I was drawn to. *Sandinista!* is pure dub chaos, yeah. But honestly, if Black Market is stripping out almost everything but the vocals and rebuilding the instrumentation from scratch into reggae arrangements, how it that *not* radical? It's honestly more radical than those *Sandinista!* dub plates. Appreciate the thoughtful engagement—it means a lot.
Admittedly, dub is one of my favorite sounds and the music I write to, so the Sandinista tracks resonate harder with me. We're using "radical" in two different ways, both valid and equally wrong. You're right that dub tracks that sound like dub tracks aren't that radical, but I think most dub is itself radical as the producer dumps most of the trappings of a song and builds something new and psychedelic out of those pieces. I get the radical gesture of another producer remaking Clash music, but it also feels a little like fan fic to make Strummer's vocal the North Star around which tracks are arranged. Still, Black Market shows skills and a thoughtful engagement with the songs, so my quibble's more about the tracks as dub than the tracks as cool music. Thanks for turning me on Black Market Dub.
Totally fair to love the *Sandinista!* dubs—they were radical and messy in a way that only The Clash could pull off at the time. But calling Black Market’s work “fan fic” because it centers Strummer’s vocal? That’s a stretch. It’s not fan service, it’s reconstruction. The original vocal is raw material, not holy relic. The point wasn’t worship, but recontextualization.
Black Market isn’t fantasizing. He’s arguing. With the originals, with the politics, with the production. That’s not imitation. That’s art.
Glad you dug into it anyway. But these tracks are more than "cool music." They're conversation starters. This one included.
I agree that it's not fan service, but that's not how I think of fan fic. I think of it as fans proposing or creating alternate possibilities. In this case, it's one where Strummer largely defines the band, and Black Market creates new music that does, as you say, ask a series of "what if ..." questions and suggest new ways to hear these songs.
One thing that occurred to me while listening to Black Market's dub tracks is that Sublime might never have got off the ground in the timeline Black Market proposes because their redundancy would have been obvious.
By the way, I had a moment of envy when I read, "The results weren’t just versions, they were visions." Nice.