***Pre Order, Signed Hardback Shipping 2nd July 2026***
As part of the Gnostic Sonics continuation of Andrews Collaboration with White Rabbit, We are proud to announce the release of Dub Revolution: Jamaica’s Sonic Innovators and the Birth of Remix Culture By David Katz.
Dub Revolution explores the most innovative and sonically adventurous subgenre of reggae, highlighting its importance in sound system culture and its impact of other music forms.
A monumental history of reggae's most innovative and sonically adventurous sub-genre,from the leading authority on reggae music and its many subcultures
As many of you will be aware, Andrews love of all things Dub was evident throughout his musical life. An essential building block to all that followed. So it only seems fitting to be a part of this launch.
Emerging as an underground phenomenon in Kingston during the early 1970s, dub was wrought by sonic alchemists such as King Tubby, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Prince Jammy and Scientist, conjuring musical mutations at the mixing desk. Dub reached other lands through the Jamaican diaspora and as Lloyd ‘Bullwackie’ Barnes furthered the form in New York, Dennis Bovell, Mad Professor and Adrian Sherwood conjured their own dub masterworks in London, Jah Shaka and his acolytes subsequently helping dub to achieve global reach. Widely adopted by post-punk producers and later a crucial influence on the underground dance music scenes of several continents, dub indelibly changed the techniques and aesthetics of music production with far-reaching effects; it’s no exaggeration to say that without dub, there would be no hip-hop or house music.
Dub is made from studio trickery, its auteurs fashioning something new by subtraction rather than addition, reversing standard recording techniques. It is a music of absence and deception, a ghostly sonic doppelganger with bass primacy and torpedoed song structures, full of holes and unexpected twists. The evolution of dub marks the birth of the remix and the emergence of the studio as an instrument in itself, a place where songs can be pulled apart and given wild reshaping, rendering a disembodied new form that is often cosmic and typically jagged. Dub’s progression is also inseparable from the troubled history of post-colonial Jamaica, blighted by caustic Cold War interventions, attendant gang culture and communal breakdowns. Through first-hand testimony with dub’s most noteworthy creatives, David Katz’s monumental forensic history of an astounding subgenre that sounds like the future five decades after its inception stands as the authoritative book on a musical art form that continues to fascinate, generation after generation.
David Katz said: ‘I had a musical epiphany at the age of seventeen when I attended a sound system session featuring Jack Ruby High Power in my hometown of San Francisco in 1982. The skilful manipulation of reconfigured reggae rhythms with dramatic emphasis on drum and bass radically altered my perception of music production, beginning a lifelong fascination with an art form of absence and deception, a ghostly sonic doppelganger with bass primacy and torpedoed song structures, full of holes and unexpected spirals. Meeting Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry a few years later pushed me deeper into the realms of dub research and as the influence of Jamaica's dub innovators has been increasingly acknowledged by a range of practitioners active in other genres. Writing Dub Revolution allowed me to delve deeper into the evolution of this confounding abstract form, using first-hand testimony gathered during the last 40 years to illuminate the many twists and turns of the tale.’
Publisher Lee Brackstone said: ‘One of the gifts of being a publisher is we occasionally get to will books into existence that we have long felt the need for in our lives. David Katz is the only and natural writer for this subject, which is so foundational to many musical subcultures, so I was delighted when he accepted my proposed commission to write the authoritative book on dub and a book which will stand as the classic and go-to work for many years to come.’
The author of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae, DAVID KATZ has written about the sounds and culture of Jamaica since 1984. His work has appeared in various music books and periodicals, including the Guardian, Mojo and the Wire; he has produced diverse radio and film documentaries and remains active as a vinyl DJ. Originally from San Francisco, he currently lives in London.
Photo credit: Étienne Bordet
Dub Revolution Jamaica’s Sonic Innovators and the Birth of Remix Culture is out 2nd July 2026.
ISBN 9781399619141
