Basement 5: 1965-1980
This is Basement 5's dissection of British Society in the last 15 years, a familiar enough panorama of concerns: traffic, immigration, race riots, 9 to 5 labour, tower blocks, impending nuclear disaster, paranoia, unions, squandered resources...
Their hearts and consciences are in the right places; they're intelligent and curious - they want to know what's going on. But do they really understand, express or explain it all any better than the rest of us can?
The Basements claim to understand best the history of reggae music in Britain, answering what they see as an impasse in its progress with their own New Generation British Reggae, a sort of Futurist Dub.
Live, it's a formidable noise and singer Dennis Morris's imposing presence more than makes up for the irritating way his declamatory singing often degenerates into an unintelligable rant.
Morris's style is much more exposed for what it is on vinyl and its monotonous quality glosses over the distinctions between songs to the detriment of the superb rhythms - or rydim, as the Five would say - lying underneath.
Rydim is the soul of this album; Leo's distinctive dub extrapolations, as immediately memorable as "immigration" or his dubwise rock 'n' roll riffs like "Last White Christmas" - plus ex-PIL drummer Richard Dudanski's dry thumping and thudding. The studio treatments of voice and guitar are less comfortable: apparently Island have already sent one mix of the album back - perhaps they ought to have held out for a third attempt.
J.R. can be a spontaneously creative guitarist; he's a tasteful player, as his carefully spliced rhythm and lead parts on "Immigration" make clear. But over most of the album the band and co-producer Martin Hannett have simply mangled his contributions in a mistaken search for 'atmosphere'. Only when the little black boxes are really cranked up and distortion turns the guitar into a new unrecognisable sound on "Omega Man" does the approach really pay dividends.
There's a point trying to be made here, as there is in Morris's propheteering - an evocation of the turmoil which the band feel they've been brought up through, perhaps? Chaos doesn't express chaos, though, and Morris needs to work harder at singing to communicate and on his lyrics to lift them beyond simplistic cliche. It wouldn't matter if he wasn't letting such excellent rydim down.
Steve Taylor
The Face, February 1981
further information
reviews notwithstanding, the basement five did some excellent work on record. with a sound that will be reassuringly familiar to anyone looking back across the '80s, the b5 released a full lp, a mini-lp, and a single for island during 1980, the high-point (in terms of volume) of hannett's career.
it's easy to see why hannett was attracted to the b5. this was a new kind of music, fast and loud like many of the rabid records bands hannett had cut his teeth on, but with a strong dub reggae bassline and lyrics in the traditional british vein: alienation, hopelessness, despair, christmas - all the usual obsessions. the reggae basslines and rastafarian band image (with futurist touches on their album covers) naturally fits with island record supremo chris blackwell's overall vision.
it's obvious that island had high hopes for the band - a full u.s. pressing was made and various promotions were printed - including a "last white xmas" 7" wrapped in wrapping paper and affixed with a basement 5 sticker. nice touch. but, as the above review from the face shows, it was not to be. the last we hear from b5 is a mini lp "in dub" with, of course, dub versions of some of the better songs from 1965-1980 (were they really 15 years old in 1980???).
overall, some excellent work, and well worth seeking out.
