LINER NOTES BY TOM WALBANK
1. DUB CUBANO- Illustrating the thematic thread of the album - from the Far East and India via Africa and the slave trade to the Caribbean finally to America. This track mixes Jamaican Reggae, American Blues and Cuban drumming . With Yvan Tamayo and friends on Cuban drums and Ryen Eggleston on bass on this track

2. BRIGHT LIGHT DUB- This comes from a live track recorded in Nantes, France by Laurent Allinger with Dimitri Manos on drums and Miguel Hamoum on upright bass. The end of the track features two bits of overdubbed harmonica over some Arthur Migliazza piano.

3. HARMONICA IN DUB- This track was built up with the harmonica responding and playing off other instruments, which were then removed. , An echo of the form of dub King Tubby practised, as opposed to the dub of say Errol Thompson or Lee Perry who added to tracks in their dub styles. The drone in the background is an Indian Tanpura. You can still hear some of the cymbals from the original track.

4. LOUISIANA SLIDE- A slide piece, recorded by Jason Canfield for a film I scored in 2009.

5. UNDERPASS-A straight up field recording, from Tucson's own 4th Ave underpass. Cars going by sound like waves.

6. MONSOON DUB- Utilising the pre natal heartbeat of my daughter Charlotte as a rhythm track , nyahbinghi drums are dropped in and out of the song while harmonica and melodica snake dance around each other on top.

7. DEATH LETTER DUB- Originally recorded as a locals only track (recorded by Duncan Hudson on KXCI in 2006) it has Dimitri Manos on drums and Mike Bagesse on second guitar. Nathan Sabatino and me dubbed this out at Loveland Studio under my direction.

8. SIXTH AVENUE- Completing the underpass trilogy of recordings from downtown Tucson arteries, collected on the Sanguine Moon ep.

9.. SATISFIED DUB- From a live track track recorded by Rebecca Eskenazi at Hotel Congress on Christmas with Nathan Sabatino on bass, Dimitri and Mike from the Ambassadors and Chris Owens on Djembe. I added harmonica, skanking guitar, dubbed out djembe hits and a brief piano coda from Arthur Migliazza. An appreciative audience member at 1:15 expresses her wish for carnal relations.

10. WAREIKA HARP- Wareika hill is a special place in the hills of Kingston, Jamaica where Count Ossie and his Nyahbinghi drummers would jam with jazz players from Kingston such as Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez and Ernest Ranglin. These get togethers in the sixties through into the early seventies spawned the solid roots flavour that runs through alot of modern Jamaican music. A hallowed place indeed.I recast it with a lone harmonica.

11. BONGO DUB- Nyahbinghi drummers are a sect of Rastafari. This track spotlights the lead drum or Kette.The melodica comes to the fore once more.

12. FREIGHT TRAIN- After noticing the decay in noise of a passing freight train, I recorded it and used it as the centre of this track. Next up is the Tanpura drone and then three tracks of John Lee Hooker solo style melding into Muddy Waters slide guitar playing to a back up track that was then removed. The guitars consequently respond to each other in a logical manner. The recording of Harmonica Dub was approached in a similar way.

13. GANGES MUD- The main focus here is the the sound of the record scratches, then the tanpura drone then the Muddy Waters slide guitar which is dialed in and out of focus to abstract it.

14. BIZOR TO FREIGHT- I recorded this with Freight Train playing on the stereo in the background and me playing harmonica nearer to the mic. This track is inspired by the song" Still Echo" by the Japanese Dub band Mute Beat, from their 1986 album Mute Beat in Dub. A track recorded from a distance, utilizing natural reverb in a manner that is considered an anathema to modern recording, where every detail is thrust into your face, and any mystery is gone.
I am playing some of this in the manner of Billy Bizor, a harmonica player I admire.

15. SANGUINE MOON- Walking through the Stone Avenue underpass, playing harmonica, pushing my daughter in the buggy, with cars going by.
This is a close cousin to Underpass. The use of drone, specifically Indian Tanpura comes from listening to a lot of Mississippi blues and noticing the constant toll of the thumb on the heavy E string in that music. The constant hypnotic pulse of the tonic, everything revolving around the one.

16. BAMAKO HOOK- This tune came about as a way to play over more West African handclap rhythms but instead of traditional West African guitar on top I put a more John Lee Hooker guitar approach. The mono version has just two guitars, the stereo version has handclaps and harp

17. DON'T ASK WHY- This started off as challenging myself to write a more Rocksteady chord progression, not a twelve bar blues. But to keep it simple. Recorded by Nathan Sabatino for the Sugar Mama album. With Ryen on upright, Dimitri on percussion and Mike Bagesse on melodic guitar.

18. GANGES STRUT- Yes it do.

19. WILL MOORE- The man begat. John Lee Hooker's stepfather. Taught him how to play. John Lee always credited him for his style. So I honor him.

20. MA BU- Horse Stance, what grounds you to your core

21. BAMAKO HOOK-stereo mix

22.. LAST BLUES- Sitting down and playing those ol'pandemic heartbeatin' blues with guitar and harp in a rack.




Like a whole generation of Brits, expat local bluesman Tom Walbank grew up with roots reggae and dub ringing in his ears, along with the punk rock of the time.

He's now taken the fractured, cut-up technology and studio chicanery of dub, drained out most of the reggae and blended it with his calling-card stripped down blues, and produced Blues in Dub, a digital-only collection of fourteen original tracks.

Mixing blues numbers run through a dub grinder like "Bright Light Dub," "Death Letter Dub" and "Satisfied Dub" with others — some more snippets than songs — that are pure, largely solo studio creations like "Bongo Dub," "Wareika Harp" and "Harmonica in Dub," and others that are more like field recordings ("Underpass," recorded in the Fourth Ave. underpass), Walbank has created some of the most original recordings to come out of Tucson in years.

This is not safe collegiate dub; it's dark, spooky stuff. "Louisiana Slide" digs deep into some backwoods swampy blues, while the title track mixes up conga, djembe, bass and Walbank's harp and guitar into a maelstrom of reverberated effects.



Carl Hanni, Tucson Weekly

May 13th 2013