Album: Lee 'Scratch' Perry, The Mighty Upsetter (On-U Sound)

Rather than method, there is odd myth in Lee Perry's madness, and a fair bit of mickey-taking fun too, I'll warrant.

Hooking up again with Adrian Sherwood 18 years after their collaboration on Perry's From the Secret Laboratory, the ageing production pioneer tackles in his own, somewhat lateral way the kind of modern issues dealt with by Matthew Herbert on There's Me, And There's You. "I'm an MC speaking diamond, dropping my bombs," he claims in "Political Confusion", going on to offer gnomic attacks on Bush'n'Blair, and sundry prophecies of Armageddon. Elsewhere, he employs cancer imagery in his attempt, in "Yellow Tongue", to "adjust the third dimension" – which if I remember rightly is breadth; and sets up firm defence of his relatives in the relaxed skank "Kilimanjaro": "You can't kill me granny, me hit you with me whammy". Sherwood's productions are typically dub-centric, most successfully so on the opener "Exercising", which features the Upsetter reciting his modus operandi ("Exercising – hypnotising – memorising – melody rising", etc) over a piano groove streaked with Indian sitar, violin and tabla in finest Suns of Arqa manner.

Pick of the album:'Exercising', 'Kilimanjaro', 'Rockhead', 'Lucy Charm'