Trance, or GOD is a Sound System

Sounds from the Burning Spear. Soul Jazz Records presents Studio 1 recordings by Burning Spear. SJR CD 101

It has been argued that GOD in the middle ages was SOUND. The sound of ringing bells over the villages and towns, bells to be heard in the forests far away from the villages. Music, church music, Gregorian chanting, organs filling the church space, resounding in the bodies of the believers.

Live sounds, no recordings whatsoever. It is now or never.

Imagine a black man from Jamaica, known as the Burning Spear.

take #1) I imagine him at a microphone in something like a speaker's cabin. No reverb, absolutely 'dry' acoustics. He is not singing, he is 'speaking', not rapping or toasting.

take #2) I imagine him with an electric bass, recording one single 'sound' that might become the back beat for Swellheaded. "Run, run, run, I will never run away".

take #3) I imagine him with a guitar doing that simple 'shuffle' that was to become the back bone of what is called roots reggae nowadays. Did he do it for hours together with a rhythm section? Did he do it for minutes by himself in the studio?

take #4) The Burning Spear at his sound system. Four tracks, eight tracks? I do not know, it doesn't matter. GOD matters, and GOD appears in the mixing process.

The Burning Spear of today is a wise, friendly old man, an eccellent live musician. Seemingly detached except for some addresses to the audience he presides a 'band', a rhythm sound machine, eine Wunschmaschine, a system that seems to function like a machinery, cog wheels connected by an invisible hand. Miles Davis's electric bands come to mind, early Talking Heads, James Brown's Jungle Groove. In this music, GOD is always nearby, no matter what 'contents' or 'message' may be involved, no matter what 'private' personality may have been involved with a man like James Brown.

Jah blessings, for an appointment with his majesty.