Bass you feel before you hear it.
Nine of us in a tin-roof warehouse by the water, cutting roots reggae the slow way: one drop, one take, the tape still warm. Press play, then pull the desk apart and dub it yourself.
Nine LPs, all self-pressed. Here are five to start.
Pick one and it re-tunes the live riddim below: a different root, a different tempo, a different weight in the skank. Then take it to the desk and make it yours.
Dub it yourself, live.
This is Sister Pauline’s board, in your browser. Pull the skank out, throw the echo up, ride the filter down. The classic dub move is to mute a stem while its echo keeps ringing. Try it.
Move to Golden Hour Dub in the tracklist, mute the skank, and push tape echo and feedback up. That ringing tail with nothing under it is the sound the record is named for.
Same harbour towns we have always played.
Doors when the tide turns. Low ceilings, wooden floors, and enough bass to move the dust off the rafters. Come early, the room fills.
Home. Two hundred people and a warehouse that sweats with you.
Low ceiling, wooden floor, the bass finds the corners and stays.
Stone walls that hold a note about a second longer than they should.
Right on the water. Bring a jacket, the wind comes in through the skank.
Nine people, one tin roof, and a very patient tape machine.
We started in 1976 in a rum warehouse on the Broadwater, the wide slow reach of harbour that gives the band its name. The rent was cheap because the roof was tin and the tide came under the door on a spring high. We stayed for the sound.
Roots reggae is a slow music and we play it slower than most. The one drop leaves the first beat empty so the bass and the space can do the talking. Everything you hear on our records was cut live to a two-inch tape that has been spliced so many times Sister Pauline names the joins.
We are not famous and we are fine with it. We press our own records, we mix our own dub, and we play the same harbour towns we have played for forty-odd years. Come down. The door opens when the tide turns.
- Formed
- 1976, Port Halloran
- Cut at
- The Tin Roof, two-inch tape
- Records
- Nine LPs, all self-pressed
- Label
- Broadwater Sounds
Plays four notes a bar and means every one of them. The foundation.
Drops the kick on the three and leaves the one wide open on purpose.
That offbeat chop on the upstroke is her right hand and nobody else's.
Doubles the skank so tight you cannot tell where the organ ends.
Blows the melodica cold on the first take. Warms up by the second chorus.
Treats the mixing board like an instrument. The dub is hers, live, every time.
Take 3. Melodica flat, leave it, it is beautiful flat.
Deacon's amp humming in the key of the room.
Rain starting. Roll the tape before it stops.
One drop. One take. Print it.
The Tin Roof, 6am
No overdubs, no click after the first take. We roll tape when the room feels right and we keep the mistakes that sound like weather. This is a page torn out of the reel-14 log book.
A few honest things.
Pressed, dubbed, and printed by us. Cash or card at the shows, or the post if you are too far to make the tide.
- BWS-01412-inchGolden Hour DubHeavyweight, self-pressed. Sister Pauline's dub on the flip.18
- BWS-001CassetteHarbour LightDubbed one at a time, hand-numbered. Warm as it gets.9
- GOODS-03Drill cottonTin Roof work shirtFaded ochre drill cotton, screen-printed by the door on show nights.34
- GOODS-06Enamel pinBroadwater enamel badgeThe harbour mark, in deep green and sun-worn ochre. Fits any lapel.6