By A.D. Amorosi
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, February 10, 2006
Lee 'Scratch' Perry still into the groove
Entering into a conversation with Lee "Scratch" Perry is as profoundly confounding as entering his music.
The words mystic, abstract and pulsating describe the work of the Jamaican roots reggae agitator and dub innovator (a Grammy-winning artist for Jamaican ET; a producer for Bob Marley, the Clash, Gregory Isaacs), as well as a renowned eccentric.
From his home studio atop a hill in Switzerland, "The Upsetter" talks a streak of religious- and comic-themed riddles in an oddly rhythmic cadence.
"My dub comes like a baby, a perfect baby," Perry says in a thick Jamaican patois of the brand of spacious, spacey reggae he cocreated with producer King Tubby at the start of the '70s in his first Black Ark Studio. "I tried to make my heartbeat like the drum and my brain, my mind, the bass line."
That is, to him, the most exquisite form of dub, something that emulates our DNA.
Then again, Perry is very up on the comic heroes Spider-Man, Batman and Robin as inspirations for his stirring work. "I am a Superman, too," he says. "I must conquer all badness."
Perry will take on all comers from his Swiss studio, one built upon "the ark of the Covenant, a holy creation of God," through which he is a vessel of rhythm and haunting musicality. He offers a beautiful weird groove for his due-soon Panic in Babylon and its collaborations with George Clinton and TV on the Radio.
Perry claims that when he conceived the funky Panic he was thinking about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and those willing to lose everything to overthrow the dictatorship. "You need the burning Burn to conquer Hussein," Perry says, prophetically. "My Babylon is your Iraq."
