If your taste in dub leans toward the adventurous and experimental, then 'Trombone G Skanking' by Dutch trombonist Guus van Diemen deserves your attention.
By Jah Rebel
Van Diemen, who besides trombone also handles guitar, bass and production (Lilo, Andy Stewlocks Ninvalle, Saskia Laroo, TRENTH, Machina Volante, Gary Spacey…), draws inspiration from everyone between Tchaikovsky, King Tubby and Lou Reed.
The album also marks the swan song of New Space Studio in The Hague. Van Diemen co-founded the venue and recording space in 2019 with fuzz-rock outfit Acquoy and the late producer-musician Piet Raphael, but on August 18 - coinciding with this record’s release date - he shut its doors for good (though a mobile version of the studio is set to continue).
Working on the dubs with a Behringer 808 drum machine, Van Diemen describes the process as therapeutic: “Musically I’m always juggling countless projects, and living in the middle of a metropolis brings its share of chaos. Locking myself away with music is like finding a retreat in the storm. I’m involved in many productions where everything is pre-planned, arranged, and rehearsed, but personally, I prefer to just play from the heart and this album is definitely an expression of that!”
’Trombone G Skanking’ unfolds almost like one continuous dub soundscape, with the titles of its eight compositions forming a sentence of their own: “We take it easy and laugh about the good things in life!”. If we had to single out favourites, they’d be the rootsy jazz-dub of ‘About’ and the seven-minute maximum opus ‘Take It’.
A bold dub experiment with our favourite horn - the trombone - taking centre stage!
