John Brown’s Body:Re-Amplify

By: Brian Heisler

As to be expected, John Brown’s Body is dominating the reggae charts again. Last fall, the band’s album Amplify rocked the reggae and general music world, and this spring they are re-rocking the world with a remix album, Re-Amplify (released March 17 on Easy Star), that features a handful of songs remixed from the previous album.

The seven-track album provides a different approach to the originals, even offering two different remixes each for “The Gold” and “Push Some Air.” The Wrongtom and Maxwell Bruck version of “The Gold” is much more a producer’s remix, whereas the Dubmatix version is almost a new take on the song with additional instrumentation. The two “Push Some Air” remixes present similar ideas, with the additional instrumentation in the first and the producer’s touch on the second. In any case, Elliot Martin‘s voice remains constant, shining out like a beacon on every track as the band’s unique signature. What is perhaps the best song on Amplify, ‘Give Yourself Over,” made it to the remix with much less instrumentation and less of Martin’s vocals, instead replaced by GoldieLocks and Synth Girl beats and additional vocals. Recent groups to tour with JBB added to the album as well with Blue King Brown on a remix of “Be At Piece” (re-titled “Conquering Heart Dub”) and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad’s Dylan Savage on “Struggling.”

Re-Amplify takes an already great piece of work and invites greats from all over the dub scene to chop and spice John Brown’s Body’s art into their own creations, always retaining the creative integrity the band originally put forth.

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