Not entirely to be confused with the one I wrote about back in 2016, this is a fancy physical pressing of the best material from the two previous albums, neither of which were available on vinyl, all beefed up by Dougie Wardrop of the Bush Chemists, if that name means anything. If the idea of Nocturnal Emissions recording dub reggae still strikes anyone as a bit odd, it really shouldn't, and this slab of black plastic blasts away what doubts may be entertained pretty much as soon as the needle finds the groove, settling into a fairly distinctive variation on the digital rasta sound which eventually became dancehall. Like I already said, it's something in which the hand which crafted Viral Shedding is clearly heard, particularly in the bass, but which absorbed a different set of influences from its south-east London environment in a variant timeline.
Nigel has done this sort of thing before, specifically hopping from one genre to another without really being too bothered about messing up the neat progression of the unfolding discography, hence occasional forays into drum & bass, techno, world music, whatever else he felt like doing at the time; and he's one of the few artists who seems to get away with it, thus avoiding looking like Jonathan King's rap album (which hopefully doesn't exist but who fucking knows). I would guess he succeeds because those areas into which the Ayers toe is occasionally dipped seem subject to the same sort of creative considerations as inform the core Nocturnal Emissions material, namely that the pushing of boundaries is actively encouraged.
Being a vinyl record, I listen to this one over speakers rather than headphones or earbuds - as I tend to use with CDs and downloads - and all its digitised sine waves and evidence of programming really come to life through the warmth of analogue reproduction. It may even be one of the best of Mr. Ayers' four plus decades in the biz.
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