Lightning Head: Studio Don (Best Seven/Sonar Kollektiv)

BBC 1 – Blues, Soul and Reggae Reviews

Taking his name from a phrase that appeared in an interview with Lee Perry, Lightning Head refers to the idea of inspiration and not, for those of you that were wondering, some freakish meteorological accident. El Head as he is sometimes known, is ex Rockers Hi-Fi main man, Glyn Bush and Studio Don is the first offering under the new moniker. Fusing latin, samba, reggae, dub and house, this wonderfully international record is made all the more surprising by the fact that it has been made by one young man living and working in Dorset, UK.
By his own admission, the self-congratulatory title is actually a play on words based on the legendary Studio One in Kingston. Like the familiar Jamaican sound of the seventies, Dorset's finest has its own set of sonic anchors: guitar, drums, bass, Hammond organ, clavinet and monosynth. That said, the El Head sound is embellished time and again with steel pan percussion, the odd e