Album Review: Frkwys, Vol. 9: Icon Give Thank by Sun Araw

By the mid 1970s, Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark Studios in Jamaica was conjuring unequivocal reggae albums (not to mention singles and special dub plates for soundsystem battles) at a possessed rate. There was the soulful work on Junior Byles' Beat Down Babylon and George Faith's To Be a Lover, Doctor Alimantado's raucous Best Dressed Chicken in Town, the drum-drug of Ras Michael & the Sons of Nagus' Love Thy Neighbour, Junior Murvin's trenchant and keen Police and Thieves, Max Romeo's loverman-cum-revolutionary on Revelation Time and War Ina Babylon. And then there was the epochal Heart of the Congos, the 1977 album cut by the Rastarian duo of the same name.

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RVNG Intl.’s FRKWYS releases have been a serial investigation into the reverberations of influence to be found between emerging artists in the areas of experimental psychedelic, electronic, and ambient musics and some of their key influences, capturing collaborations between the young Turks and the old guard both through music and video recordings. This ninth entry in the series pairs Cameron Stallones’ Sun Araw project with legendary dub artists The Congos. Bringing producer/mixer M Geddes Gengras along with him to St.

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Does deep space curve? This is a record that suggests as much. Icon Give Thank is a collaboration between two very distant kinds of cosmic vibes makers, reaching out to meet one another through time and context. Inhaling deeply, we have the latter-day Los Angelean psychedelics of Cameron "Sun Araw" Stallones and his accomplice M Geddes. Nodding by the mixing desk, you find the older, contemplative dub reggae of the Congos.

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