Years before Scientist and Jammy battled the space invaders, Tradition dreamt up a sci-fi jazz/dub odyssey in north London.
Captain Ganja and the Space Patrol is one of the most singular dub albums that barely saw the light of day. A conscious effort to create a new breed of dub centred around the cosmic synths and keys of Paul Thompson. Making use of an early Roland sampler, Tradition broke away from the standard drum / bass workouts that ruled the day. With the Captain, dub becomes an atmosphere, a feeling, not a formula - littered with baby's cries, tribal chants, radiophonic noodlings and library soundtracks for space-age bachelor pads.
Originally issued by Venture Records in 1980, this small run was easily lost beneath the weight of their huge vocal LPs for RCA and everlasting lovers-tinged tracks like 'Movin On','Breezin' and 'Summertime'. The experimental strains in one of their early 45s led the BBC to approach them about contributing to the Dr. Who soundtrack, Captial Radio did likewise for the Hulabaloo theme. Neither saw fruition and this facet of the band's sound is easily forgotten by diehard fans.
The long awaited next piece of the TNT Roots, raw unpolished, extra valuable, long-sought-after diamond is here, via our friends at Bokeh HQ!!!!
You already know that we’re big fans of this legendary underground dubplate-slinger from day one – and how much we appreciate this vinyl outings from this mythical producer, on one of our dearest friends labels.
Miles at Bokeh Versions once said that he ‘likes our reviews the best’. Well, he shouldn’t be writing such spot-on words himself then, because, unfortunately the best thing we can do (rather than just re-shape his words) is to copy & paste the official Bokeh-blurb here, for all the info and heartfelt sentimental value you need, in order to understand what this all means to us:
“TNT has never released a record before (aside from the 12″ we did last year), so this is a huge fucking honour to be trusted with this material. TNT Roots has continued a solo career since Earthquake quietly folded in 2002, trading short-run CDr’s on Ebay and the Blood & Fire forum. His music still survives on not-for-sale dubplates – pushed exclusively by legendary 90s sounds like Aba Shanti.
The result is the Raw Dub Creator LP – a survey of his 2006 – 2018 CDr selected by Bokeh.
These are driving, dark, militant sounds for these times made in seeming isolation in Northampton (TNT never plays live, doesn’t want Bandcamp, just wants to sell his CDs quietly over email). TNT Roots’ contribution to dub is seismic, almost dinosauric, but through some glitch in universe fabric, ‘Mighty In Battle’ [Bokeh 2018] was his first official vinyl release. As half of Earthquake – he’s responsible for the darkest, forward, most slept-on future of dub to grace us. This unique and heavy vision has reset the whole game with long unavailable LPs like Revelation in Dub and Dub Harder Than Steel make obvious an understated lineage flowing from 90s steppas down to jungle, grime, hardcore, darkcore, doomcore, it’s kinda pointless to list them. It’s dub. TNT and Earthquake’s rightful place alongside those mystic giants, Iration Steppas, is more than assured by those that know.
Everything we worked for on Bokeh…..feels like it leads here x”
Crippling bassweight, synthesized eski pre-sets, rootsy chimes and steppas vamps collide on this 12" of future soundsystem artillery from a true dub musical legend.
TNT Roots' contribution to dub is seismic, almost dinosauric, but through some glitch in universe fabric, 'Mighty In Battle' is his first official vinyl release. As half of Earthquake - he's responsible the darkest, most slept-on future dub to grace Bokeh ears. Long unavailable LPs like Revelation in DubandDub Harder Than Steel make obvious an understated lineage flowing from 90s steppas down to jungle, grime, hardcore, darkcore, doomcore - all of the cores really. TNT and Earthquake's rightful place alongside those mystic giants, Iration Steppas, is more than assured by those that know.
Both tracks are presented here inna try 90s 12" fashion with 3 alternative/dub mixes.
![TNT Roots – Raw Dub Creator [LP] - Unearthed Sounds](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0488/8057/products/bkv028_{width}x.jpg?v=1621534338)
