Bobby, we talked about these quite some time ago in another thread. The label is "MiruMir" (and these dub albums say "Dub Mir"), this is a sublabel to a Russian label called Lilith. There are some threads here on them if you search. They do lots of reissues of old classic titles that seem to be of questionable legality (they have done Cream reissues for example), or made through some legal loophole, but apparently they also do many properly licensed reissues, they did some Kiss stuff (LPs I think), and they were questioned by fans, but they were confirmed as sactioned by officials representing Kiss. Now, these Greensleeves albums (they have done all six of the classic Scientist titles, on LP and CD, and they are on Spotify too) all say ”…issued under exclusive licence for the world excluding North America by Hopeton Overton Brown”, so it seems that Scientist has licensed these out to MiruMir, but it can be argued that it is not his thing to do. He is of course in confict with Greensleeves, and maybe he has seen a possibility to get these out and reap some of the rewards, by going via this label, just speculating. I am very tempted to buy these, I have just been waiting for the last two to come out, which they did earlier this year, so I will bite. I am assuming that they probably are clones of the Greensleeves CDs, those are the only previous digital versions, I doubt they have done any new mastering, but who knows. As for vinyl, that is probab ly more of a gamble, but I seem to remember that, even though questionable, many of their Rock reissues have gotten praise for being well done.
LOL - I guess the guys at TTLab have the "MUP" instead of "MIR"! I saw MUP and thought - well there's a new one. Anyway, would be interesting to hear reviews on the quality of these pressings. The Russian vinyl thread here has some mixed reviews, although I'm ignorant as to whether any of that info pertains to these LPs: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/russian-vinyl-pressings-good-bad-or-ugly.412015/
I guess the Cyrillic letters for "Mir" look like "Mup", this is what it says on Discogs: Label: Мирумир Series: Dub Мир I won't be gambling with vinyl, I will get the CDs. They have very limited distribution it seems, the ones I have found are available from Italy (which is famous for it's loopholes in copyright law, so maybe that tells us something).
I skimmed through that thread, they are mostly talking about vintage pressings from the Soviet era on the state owned Melodiya label. When it comes to rock/pop those were often basically bootleg style pressings (not from master tapes), and often not authorized by the labels that had the rights, although they were somehow semi-legal (or at least nothing could be done about them), I have some Zeppelin, Purple and Sabbath, very funky (in a bad way). I don't think these we are talking about would be anything like that, they wouldn't be pressed in Russia.
I read some of the threads where Lilith is discussed, it seems the pressings are of high quality, they are made at gzvinyl, but this also means they are made from CD sources.
I bought the Russian pressings of the Scientist albums. The vinyl looked fine but I havent had the time to play them as I'm traveling a lot these days Will report on those at the end of the month
It's been several years since I last watched this clip, and came across it again tonight. Good heavens, DEB was a soulful gem-of-a-voice!
This is also sounds like a different mix than what I've heard elsewhere. Love this song and clip, Dennis with spliff in hand!
Thought I should give you all a shout out / heads up about the fact that one of the guys behind Motion records is selling of old stock LPs and CDs on eBay. He is selling them in bundles of LPs or CDs that contain almost the complete output of the label (although since it has been going on for a while some titles are now sold out). The LPs are auctioned off and the CDs are "buy it now", and the prices are extremely good, so if you don't have these, here is a chance that will never come back. The seller is treetopmusicuk, or you search for "Bundle" and "Motion Records" and you'll find them.
I broke down and ordered this set from Ernie B. In terms of what it includes, it's hard to complain. It's got three discs full of material, and the liner notes are way more extensive than anything I've seen from B&F. The packaging is actually quite nice, even though there's a misspelling on the spine and the cover shot makes it look rather "cheap." But inside there are tons of photos of vintage 7" labels, etc, and as I said, there is a wealth of information packed into the 28 pages of liner notes. This set was obviously assembled with love. But yes... the sound! It's painful at times. The last four tracks on Disc 3, the dub plates, are the worst offenders. I know they literally come from one-of-a-kind sources, and I doubt there is anything that could have been done to improve the sound. Maybe someone like Kevin Metcalfe could have eliminated some of the most excessive noise, but I doubt it. So it's awesome to have these totally rare tracks on there, but it's also kind of difficult to listen to more than once. There are also quite a few vinyl-sourced tracks on Disc 2 that are full of noise, but again, the music is so great it's hard to get upset. I like this little disclaimer in the liners: "If you listen to the music in this package through earbuds, on your phone or through your computer speakers, you will be missing the full power of the music. To experience the true 'lightning and thunder' play the CDs through a true audio system."
Packaging was never Shanachie's strong suit, this box set is similar to an Augustus Pablo box they did a while back, which has an even cheaper look, but also has excellent content. They have also in the past re-issued several classic albums, where for some reason they always replace the original artwork with some cheap looking thing of their own making, I don't know why...? About the sound, this is how it goes with Reggae, for a lot of material vinyl is the only source, and sometimes it is in bad shape, so it will always be a judgment call between the quality of sound and the quality of the music, and I think the latter is more important, I'd rather have the music than not, warts and all. The 3rd disc is after all called "Rarites", and that means "noisy and scratchy" in Reggae-language.
Thanks, I'm a great fan of Lee Perry and King Tubby and was just in time for purchasing the last (!) set (despite the fact I was not known with that label, but I suppose by your suggestion it's a fine one)
It's all quality stuff, I don't think you will be dissappointed. There still seems to be plenty left, the CD bundle is still there and he's continually listing LP bundles (about once a week). Which did you buy, the CDs or LPs? I had almost all of them on CD, but none on LP, so I now have a set of them on it's way.
I thought I purchased the last cd bundle (it was saying so), but I notice there is - right now - still one left. Hmm, so there are more to go... I hope some I don't need, while I'm now out of money (just back from holidays)...
Well, you got 12 great CDs for £25, so well spent money I would say! I think he still had quite a few of the CDs left, might possibly have been the last bundle to include Sledgehammer in Dub, he said he was low on that. The LP titles are running out one by one, I got the very last copies of two of the Skatalites titles. I see eBay and Discogs are now full of Motion stuff, people buy and resell...
We have that saying in Swedish too - it doesn't quite work in English without the rhyme (död - bröd / dood - brood).
Hey, you know even the Dutch words for these! I purchased that cd bundle especially for Lee Perry, King Tubby and Jacob Miller. I will definitely listen to all the other cds, but I'm not a completist: the ones which are not my cup of tea will be being put (cheaply) at the selling thread here. But that's for another time.
Ha, ha, there's this thing called Google. But the words are basically the same as in Swedish. I think you'll find there's plenty of tasty "tea" in there. Of course it depends if you enjoy the Skatalites, since there's three CD's with them. The Phase One CD is excellent and there's three great dub albums in there, and the Randy's CD actually has some straight (non-Reggae) Funk and Soul on it, which is interesting to hear.
The magnificent Dee Jay version Mosiah Garvey (extended) by Big Youth (over the Burning Spear original) never fails to knock me sideways!
Picked up the Freddie McGregor - Big Ship GREENSLEEVES LP REISSUE after someone posted about it and It was not as bad as I though it was at all also picked up the following reissues Michael Prophet - Gunman and Johnny Osbourne – Folly Ranking which I highly recommend
Why would you think it should be bad? Or maybe you were thinking about the pressing, not the music? On that note, are these Greensleeves repressings remasterings, or are they made using original masterings (via using old metal parts)? Maybe it is different from case to case?
It does seem to be a case by case situation these last purchases are the best I have heard from them in regards to repressings I think if they originally put them out in the day they are going to be a much higher quality than if they got the tapes from another source I was expecting Big Ship to be a big lovers rock snooze fest
