Irregular Roots – No Way
Release Info
Irregular Roots – No Way
Label: ARK/A-Lone Productions | Format: 7″ Single | Street date: November 15, 2019
- No Way
- No Way Dub
If you’re a true reggae fan and, by now, you don’t know that Spain has a flourishing reggae scene with artists and producers who are deeply inspired and influenced by the roots reggae sounds from the late ’70s and early ’80s, you must have been living under a rock. In particular the unstoppable Roberto Sánchez has been a major force in creating and producing music that harks back to that golden era in Jamaica’s popular music. Besides producing international artists, he also has had a keen ear for homegrown talent like Inés Pardo, Ranking Forest, Don Fe, and Virginia Rivera.
Roberto Sánchez’s latest collaboration is with a young band from Zaragoza, Spain called Irregular Roots. The latter consists of Carlos Carnicer (vocals & backing vocals), Nacho García (bass), Jesús Bravo (guitar & backing vocals), Javi Mediel (guitar), Eduardo Garcia (piano, keyboards & backing vocals), and Bigboy (drums). In the summer of 2016 they released their first album, featuring 6 vocal cuts and 4 dubs. Besides coming up with original compositions, the band has a ruff and solid sound reminiscent of the aformentioned roots reggae era.
“No Way”, a serious roots piece with a powerful message, is the band’s very first 7” vinyl single. This is definitely one with which they are going to establish the radar of attention for themselves and next to that an excellent way to make listeners eager to hear more from this much promising self-contained outfit. “No Way” and its dub version on the flipside are taken out of their forthcoming ‘showcase’ album, which will also be produced, recorded and mixed by Roberto Sánchez.
Another worthy old-skool roots reggae effort coming from Spain.
It should be remarked that although this project is rather young, as mentioned in the text. All the musicians have been playing in other reggae bands since early 2000s, namely we&dem and jahsta, with released cd, also recorded back in time by Roberto Sanchez at A-line. While Carlos had been chanting in soundsystem style, first at trakatak and nowadays in freedom vibration. With this I just wanted to emphasize that they all have been working hard for the roots culture for many many years, before the now-a-days flourishing scene.