Lee “Scratch” Perry was one of the many musical giants who left us in 2021. The reggae producer, — credited with pioneering the instrumental subgenre of dub, which influenced rock, hip-hop, and dance – passed away at the age of 85, but before he died, he was able to connect with Dot Allison for what is being billed as his final production. In “Love Died In Our Arms (Lee’ Scratch’ Perry Remix),” out today (Feb. 4), the music icon puts his spin on the Scottish singer-songwriter’s 2021 track. Originally a haunting, ethereal wail of heartbreak, this song is transformed into a dancefloor seduction, one brimming with danger but too irresistible to ignore.
For Allison, this was a chance to work with one of her heroes. “I have been influenced by the genre of dub since the very beginning when I began One Dove, and I worked with Andrew Weatherall,” Dot shares with HollywoodLife. Started in the 1990s, One Dove was an electronic music group featuring Dot, Ian Carmichael, and Jim McKinven. The group worked with legendary producer/DJ Andy Weatherall for Morning Dove White, a celebrated album that incorporated multiple influences – including dub. “I realize it was the innovation and otherworldliness of the ricocheting tape delays and the wonderful assault on the senses that a sound system experience can be,” Allison says of the genre.
“I had an almost ‘out of body’ experience at a dub clash night I was in North London in the late 90s, so I can see why there is a spiritual component to the experience of listening to dub music … in a way, it was like a church of sorts,” she adds.
“I believe Lee’ Scratch’ Perry inarguably invented that genre and his innovation has then certainly influenced me throughout my career and to the present day,” Dot tells HollywoodLife, “whereby in the studio very recently I recorded myself catching sonic signals with a Space Echo and allowing the delays to ring out whilst recording the audio of the effect alone, to then edit, modify and use it as a new part or component in and of itself .. a technique I osmotically absorbed through my awareness and experience of dub. So I owe so much to Lee’ Scratch’ Perry and the various musical ‘children’ of his dub inventions.”
This history remix follows Dot Allison’s Heart-Shaped Scars, her first solo album in a decade. “Love Died In Our Arms (Lee’ Scratch’ Perry Remix)” also serves as the first single off of Dot’s Entangled Remix EP, a collection of reworkings of Heart-Shaped Scars tracks. She chose that EP title to tie it in with the solo album, but also to connect, as she says, the “slightly disparate influences on the EP spanning decades from when I was first influenced by dub music and did a remix for St. Etienne to Anton in Berlin and the Anchoress now.”
“Love Died In Our Arms (Lee’ Scratch’ Perry Remix) is out now.