Published
Sat, Feb 20, 2010, 13:00
- The collaborative imprint will reissue digital era reggae and dancehall records.
Dub techno pioneer Mark Ernestus has announced he will launch a new reggae label, Dug Out, together with Mark Ainley of Honest Jon's.
When it comes to esoteric dancehall and reggae, there are few more qualified than these two. As a member of Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound, Ernestus spent much of his career bridging the gap between reggae and dub techno, working with artists like Sugar Minott and Paul St. Hilaire along the way. At his esteemed Hard Wax record store in Berlin, dub, reggae and dancehall have long shared shelf space with house and techno, and the staff's monthly Wax Treatment event at the city's Horst club has a loose dub and reggae theme. As for Honest Jon's co-founder Mark Ainley, the West London shop which he helms has long been an outpost of the finest reggae selections, and since 2003, he and Ernestus have worked together on Basic Replay, a re-issue imprint in a similar vein to their new project.
Though it's criteria is generally open-ended, Dug Out will focus primarily on records from the digital era– a period in the 1980s when dancehall and reggae artists began favoring digital instruments and methods of production. All of Dug Out's records will be available digitally as well as on CD and high-quality vinyl, while the imprint's first two releases—King Kong's He Was a Friend and Michael Rose's Obserb Life—are already available at Honest Jon's and Hard Wax.