Review
Genre and Mood
Stepart and Pupajim made Another Night as dub with electronic means: reggae’s studio art filtered through the bass culture of a Paris producer and the voice of Brittany’s Stand High Patrol. Its mood is dark, in the words of Culture Dub’s review, and introspective, a track the reviewer thought hard to play on a sound system but ideal for listening alone.
Song Summary
Another Night is the title track of the release with which Stand High Records, the sound system’s own label, introduced Stepart, a French dub and dubstep producer. He composed and produced it; Pupajim, Stand High Patrol’s MC, voiced it. A record shop summed up the result as low-fi instrumentals with touching, good vocals, filed under electro dub.
Musical Breakdown
No source times the track part by part; the one review that describes it speaks of its atmosphere and of one verse.
Main Section
Culture Dub heard the track as fresh and innovative, in a rather dark atmosphere, with the instrumentals that the shop called low-fi carrying Pupajim’s voice.
Verse 3
The review’s highlight is the third verse, in which Pupajim’s voice transcends itself and becomes almost unrecognisable.
Concepts in Focus
dub began in Jamaica as a way of remixing records, stripping them to drums and bass and treating the rest with echo and drop-outs. Sound systems such as Stand High Patrol play it live, and producers like Stepart, whom Culture Dub calls a pure child of bass culture, carried it into electronic production. A voice treated until it is almost unrecognisable, as the review hears in the third verse, belongs to that tradition of the studio as an instrument.
lo-fi production keeps the marks of modest means, and the shop’s word for these instrumentals helps explain the reviewer’s verdict: a sound that is intimate rather than massive suits headphones better than a wall of speakers. Compare the Paris beatmaker Tom Fire’s reggae in Tom Fire, Linval Thompson – No Food (feat. Linval Thompson).
Artistic Context
Stand High Patrol is a sound system from Brittany: Pupajim on the microphone, Mac Gyver as operator, Rootystep as selector and Merry on trumpet, with its own label, Stand High Records, since 2009. Stepart, according to Culture Dub the first artist the label signed, shared the 12-inch with the crew: his two tracks voiced by Pupajim, Another Night and Rainy City Blues, on the A side, and two Stand High Patrol dubs on the B side. The digital release came on 15 February 2013, with the 45 rpm vinyl, mastered by Christoph Grote-Beverborg, announced for the end of that month. The label released Stepart’s debut album, Playground, in 2017.
Impact and Reception
Culture Dub predicted the 12-inch would soon become a collector’s item. It is here as a night piece. Put it on late, with headphones, and wait for the third verse.
