ENTITY · STUDIO

Black Ark

Well supported

Lee "Scratch" Perry's studio behind his home at Washington Gardens, Kingston, built in 1973 and running until its destruction by fire in 1979. Working with modest four-track equipment, Perry produced a sound nobody has convincingly reproduced — layered, saturated, drenched in echo and unexpected noise — on records for Max Romeo, Junior Murvin, the Congos and The Heptones, and on his own productions. The Black Ark years are the strongest argument that the studio itself, and not only the players, is an instrument in Jamaican music.

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At a glance

Type: studio →
Era: Rocksteady, reggae and dub →
Confidence: Well supported

Connections

In stories

Story · ProbableDub and the version

How the B-side and the mixing desk became instruments.

Story · ProbableThe Dub Revolution: How King Tubby and Lee Perry Turned the Mixing Desk Into an Instrument

In the studios of 1970s Kingston, engineers learned to dismantle a finished song and rebuild it as something stranger, launching the version, the remix and the idea of the producer as author.

Story · ProbableThe dub album as its own art form

By the mid-1970s, stripping a reggae master down to drum, bass and echo had stopped being a B-side trick and become an album statement in its own right.