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REVIEW: ZION TRAIN - Natural Wonders Of The World In Dub (Universal Egg Records)

Zion Train has always been into experimenting and going there own way when coming to dub music. Not necesarilly looking towards Jamaica for inspiration but still keeping a certain vibe of dub musics heritage. In 1994, when this album was first released, the UK reggae/dub scene was closly devoloping alongside other urban dance music like house and techno. The line between dub and other electronic music was and still is quite thin at times. Many of the UK's dub pioneers have ventured into dance music at some point and done it well which eventually lead people from outside the dub scene into it and vice versa. Zion Train was one of those and with this album they caught the interest of many people from outside the typical dub circle to venture into their spacious landscape of sound.

Soundclip - Zion Train - Amazon

The chill out sound from their first album "Passage To Indica" is present here as well but on "Natural Wonders..." they've included more sampled drum patterns and percussions which gives it a extra edge comparing to their first album. This is dub music no doubt about it although at times it tends to cross over to pure chill out music. The one thing though that always keeps it strict reggae is the bass. Because through all the twisted skanks,conga percussion and somewhat psychedelic melodies and sounds the bass always shines bright.

Telling from the title this is a all dub album though their main vocalist at the time, Molara, didn't get left out completly since she got to do the album cover. The few sparse voices you hear are samples from recorded speeches or television shows. Since all tracks sort of fades into the other the album sounds best if you listen to it straight through. Going from the uptempo beginning to the more dubwise and chill out middle part before the BPM slowly rises again until it drops at the very end. This giving you the feel and resemblance of a long dubwise mix in a chillout room in the middle of the ninties. If you experienced one you know the feeling. All to all a good chill out album although I tend to favour their "Passage To Indica" before this one.

Soundclip - Zion Train - Zion Canyon

The concept of the album was to make music inspired by beautiful places around the world that they had either visited or heard about therefor titles like "Great Barrier Reef" and "Llanberis Pass". The album comes in a informative cover containing a little information on each of the places which inspired the production of the album as well as the page of miscellaneous historic and scientific info that seems to come with every full length Zion Train release. Each one teach one.

/Rootsy Collins - 23/2-06