RhoDeo 1318 Roots

Hello, France like the UK has some colonial connection to the Caribbean, as a consequence they did devellop a reggae / dubscene as well, though the availibility of plenty of grass must have inspired. The coming weeks i'll be presenting some of it.

In hindsight maybe i should have started with today's sampler albums still these will give you more depth and plenty to .....N'joy

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While the French dub scene is undoubtedly burgeoning, the lack of mainstream success and radio airplay for groups as talented as High Tone, Zenzile, Lab°, Improvisators Dub, Ezekiel and Kaly begs the question: are French dub groups the victims of geographic discrimination? The answer appears to lie worryingly close to home. France is one of the most centralised countries in the world, which basically means if your group's not based in Paris you'll have a hard time breaking through. So the continuing existence of Lyons-based dub act High Tone and dub rockers Zenzile, from Angers, is all the more praiseworthy!

Strictly speaking, High Tone and Zenzile - who both emerged from the alternative punk rock scene in the 80s – have only one thing in common and that is their passion for dub. However, both groups take a radically different approach to their musical style. While High Tone play the techno-dub card to the max, Zenzile prefer to align themselves with the 'post-rock' scene, integrating a broad range of musical influences into their work.

Unlike the British and Jamaican dub scenes (both increasingly taken over by machines these days), the French dub scene revolves around the value of real musicians playing live. Indeed, French dub is thriving on the live scene right now with fans packing out concert venues and record sales continuing to mount steadily. Mathieu, from Zenzile, is pleased to note the arrival of a new dub generation in France. "Over the past five years or so," he says, "a lot of young groups have been coming up to us with dub demo tapes – which is a real step forward because before they were totally focused on reggae. The only problem is persuading young acts not to copy what existed before, but create their own distinctive sound instead! Personally, I've always found it perfectly ridiculous for French reggae groups to copy their Jamaican counterparts. At the end of the day reggae's a totally local folklore. We have to face the fact that we're from Angers-49, not Kingston, Jamaica!"

Talking of tapping into local mentalities, what will it take for dub to explode onto the French mainstream? Mathieu remains convinced that "dub will remain a 'niche market', as they say in the music industry. OK, so that niche has existed for over 40 years now, but that doesn't mean to say it's lost its niche status. I think one of the main problems with marketing dub is the lack of vocals – that completely throws record company directors! They don't know how to work it at all and we have a real problem with getting exposure in the media. Whatever happens we're not bothered about being 'big in France'. Our priority is to make a name for ourselves worldwide. We went out and played in Montreal this summer and we attracted a really broad audience – there were fans aged from 7 to 77 in the audience! People our parents' age came up to us after the show and congratulated us on our performance. And that's something that's really rewarding, believe me!"

As you will have gathered, the French dub scene is becoming one of the most fertile musical hotbeds in Europe right now. And the fact that leading French acts are moving away from traditional Jamaican dub formats has proved to be one of the movement's greatest strengths. Now all it needs is for the music industry and the mainstream public to catch up!

ParisDubActivitys is a dub netlabel created by InaDubState and THeAnGelZ in july 2005. The main goal is to make accessible the music of undiscovered artists to most of people. All tunes here are totally free, all the people who is creating, composing, participating in anyway to PDA, is just working for pleasure and not for money. All of what you can download here is under a  Creative Commons licence. We hope you’ll enjoy our sound, and remember that we're always watching the comments you make on our production !

ParisDubActivitys check it out

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VA - French Dub System, Vol. 1 (flac  471mb)

01 Pilah - Pile Up Dub (dub addict) 4:35
02 Zenzile - Airport Lights 4:31
03 Löbe Radiant Dub System - Sensitive Material Landfill 5:57
04 Framix - No War 4:14
05 Brain Damage feat. Black Sifichi - Cube Dub 4:33
06 Ez3kiel - Phantom Land 4:53
07 High Tone & Kaly Live Dub - Dub Me Thunder 5:35
08 Sism-X - Dub Strike 4:21
09 Dub Wiser - The First 5:35
10 Lab° - Brain Fish 6:02
11 L'Oeuf Raide - Caïn & Co 3:29
12 Twelve - Jimmy's Ghost 4:45
13 Improvisators Dub - Warmonger Dub 3:57
14 Dubphonic - Galactic Sushi Man 6:21
15 K2R Riddim - Indépendance Dub (Edit) 5:01
16 Positive Radical Sound - Exilé (Mad Professor Remix) 4:47

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French Dub System 2.0 (flac  464mb)

01 Zenzile - War Still A Run 4:16
02 Brain Damage Meets Aïzell - Effective Dispute Resolution (Inédit) 4:24
03 The Dynamics - Seven Nation Army (Inédit) 4:21
04 Improvisators Dub - The Real Source In Dub 4:51
05 Fedayi Pacha - L'lle Aux Chiens (Exclu) 6:49
06 Lab° - A Dub Song - Une Chanson Dub (Exclu) 4:33
07 Duberman - Free Memental 4:48
08 Hybrid Sound System - L'Uzure (Exclu) 5:41
09 Framix - 154 Dub 4:13
10 Manutension - Jean-Philippe (Inédit) 4:55
11 Pirate Dub - Hammond Versus Bass 3:57
12 Dub Wiser - Nashdaf (Exclu) 5:20
13 Kanka - Skunky (Exclu) 4:27
14 GG Project - Rockin (Exclu) 4:27
15 Cinematec - Kingstoned 6:02
16 Löbe Radiant Dub System - Oness & Unity (Inédit) 5:46

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