Bedouin Soundclash - Sounding a Mosaic Album Review

Bedouin Soundclash
Sounding a Mosaic

The three members of Bedouin Soundclash, a rock reggae outfit who could lazily be called a mixture of Sublime, The Police and Bob Marley, met in Kingston. You could be forgiven for mistaking this for the Kingston, Jamaica. Not so. These boys met in Ontario and were united by their love of punk, reggae, world, dub and jungle, to name but a few. For the past two years singer Jay Malinowski, bassist Eon Sinclair and percussionist Pat Pengelly have been trying to create a sound which reflects the music they grew up on, and with new album Sounding a Mosaic they may just have succeeded. By combining their unique sound with the splicing talents of NY Hardcore scene founder Daryl Jennifer (of Bad Brains fame) Bedouin Soundclash have managed to create a sound which has the familiarity and soulfulness of reggae combined with the energy and drive of punk and hip-hop. Each track sizzles with the rasping, Marley-esque vocals of Malinowski , throbs with Sinclair's bass and is constantly driven forward (albeit calmly) by Pengelly's heavy, heavy beats. Whilst no fundamentalist issues will be solved here, this is perfect music for chilled out afternoons or late night dancing and with a reworking of Money Worries by the Maytones' Vernon Buckley, and a remix by acclaimed violinist Paul Lazare (of the Gotan Project), it is definitely one of my current favourite albums.

Roz Jones