The Upsetters

The Upsetters’ last album to be recorded by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at The Black Ark is a masterpiece of mellifluous, gently psychoactive dub reggae.

A spiritual successor to 1976’s ’Super Ape’, its follow-up ‘Return of the Super Ape’ (1978) marked Lee’s final recordings with The Upsetters, his “floating” band of crack instrumentalists since 1969, who were his go-to players for recordings with The Wailers, and pretty much counted the best of Jamaica in their number at one time or other.

While Lee would continue to record at the inestimably influential studio, The Black Ark, until 1979, before burning it down, these recordings are the last attributed to The Upsetters, and notably include the swooning, modal psych-pop-reggae stunner ‘Bird In Hand’ - worth the entry factors over if you ask we - alongside the gorgeous balm of ‘Crab Yars’, and the crazed dubbing of its immense title tune.