Search - Dub Gabriel :: Ascend

The ghosts in his cauldron brewing brilliance.

07/01/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa became so bored with day-to-day reality he created over 200 identities for himself, assuming a new style for each. Brooklyn-based bassist/producer/DJ Dub Gabriel is equally prolific, though not by tedium. His many alter-egos include the Qaballah Steppers, Baraka Orchestra and Brooklyn Massive Sound System, As well as running Baboon Records and two weekly parties at the Lower East Side's Kush, one dedicated to Reggae, the other Middle Eastern grooves. Ascend borrows heavily from the latter, slightly from the former, and all together from a unique collage of deeply rhythmic percussion and tripped-outer-spaced-in horns, drones and synths. "Urban Mystic" blows through a warm, fuzzy, breakbeaten air, while "Celebrate" is a hypnotic jam worthy of Gnawa trance. "Element Breaths" finds darkly technological landscapes spiced with birdcalls and cricket anthems, while the title track (which you'd almost expect airy, melodic) gets down and dirty with global-tinged nu-jazz rhythms. Predominantly instrumental (save Young Sand's vocals on "New Sand"), chaotically meditative and bass-driven, Dub's ascension plummets into an archaic subterfuge to emerge anew, the ghosts in his cauldron brewing brilliance.
Derek Beres
Rhythm Magazine"

Ascended!

D. Ehlers | Fayetteville,AR. | 05/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"That's exactly whats happended to me.I bought it a month ago and haven't put it away yet.I love ambient music.My first impression was it's a little "drummy',but as I listended,it ascended into a couldroun of beautiful,flowing,melting pot of Crooklyn-world stew!I'm very choosy of what I collect,and Dub Gabriel at Baboon records is a welcome member to my collection of music that helps me by taking me away to another,not so distant,semi-surreal,etheareal place.Thank God he's keeping hope alive!I'm getting Samsarian Sound system soon,I'll keep you posted!!!"