Second Light

Second Light
Studio album by Dreadzone
Released 30 May 1995
Recorded Dubby Road Studios, West London
Genre Ambient dub, dubtronica, folktronica
Length 56:29
Label Virgin
Producer Dreadzone
Dreadzone chronology
360°
(1993)360°1993		 Second Light
(1995)		 Biological Radio
(1997)Biological Radio1997
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link

Second Light (subtitled "An Original Dreadzone Sound Adventure") is the second album by the British band Dreadzone. It was released on Virgin Records in 1995. John Peel had supported their first album, 360°, giving it heavy airplay, as he also did for Second Light, which he cited as one of his favourite albums of all time. The album was heavily represented in the Festive Fifty for 1995.[1] Dreadzone tracks appeared at #5 ("Zion Youth"), #9 ("Maximum"), #16 ("Fight the Power"), #23 ("Little Britain"), #35 ("Captain Dread") and #48 ("Life, Love & Unity").[2]

Four tracks became UK chart hits: "Zion Youth" reached #49 as did "Captain Dread", "Little Britain" (#20) and "Life, Love & Unity" (#56).[3]

As of February 2017, the album has sold 81,182 copies in the UK.[4]

Track listing

  1. "Life, Love and Unity" (Williams, Roberts) (5:43)
  2. "Little Britain" (Roberts, Bran, Carl Orff) (5:14)
  3. "A Canterbury Tale" (Roberts) (8:40)
  4. "Captain Dread" (Roberts) (5:16)
  5. "Cave of Angels" (Williams, Bran, Roberts) (6:13)
  6. "Zion Youth" (Roberts, Daley) (6:05)
  7. "One Way" (Roberts, Bran) (6:00)
  8. "Shining Path" (Williams, Roberts) (7:22)
  9. "Out of Heaven" (Roberts) (5:57)

Samples and influences

Greg Roberts has said in interview that

"You hear something within a tune which excites you and which you feel that you can do something with. I like having a base to start from and a musical or a melodic idea that conjures up and puts you in a certain mood. I will always use samples. They start off most of our songs. When it comes to dialogue, I think the best dialogue comes from simply watching a lot of films and thinking, "That sounds nice." and "It is fun working with samples ... except when you have to sit down with people and work out deals."[5]

  • "Life, Love and Unity" contains a sample from "Disco Dub" by Johnny Clarke.[6] The female voices saying "hello" at the beginning of the track are sampled from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  • "Little Britain" contains dialogue from Lindsay Anderson's film if.... of the pompous headmaster (Peter Jeffrey) showing off for his students: "Britain today is a powerhouse of ideas, experiments, imagination"; the line "You and the land are one!" is spoken by Perceval (Paul Geoffrey) to King Arthur (Nigel Terry) in the 1981 film Excalibur. The track also contains a sample of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.
  • "A Canterbury Tale" uses dialogue samples from Powell and Pressburger's 1944 film of the same title, including "What wouldn't I give to grow old in a place like that?", spoken by Sheila Sim (as Alison Smith, while riding on a horse and cart past a large country house); the music uses extracts from Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.
  • "Captain Dread" contains samples from "The King of Ballyhooley" by Patrick Street and "Bostich" by Yello; also a snatch of the song "I want to be a sailor" from the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad: "I want to be a sailor sailing out to sea, No plowboy, tinker, tailor's any fun to be". The line "All right my hearties, follow me!" is spoken by Errol Flynn in the 1935 film Captain Blood.[7] Also featured is an extract from Derek Walcott's poem "The Schooner Flight":

    "You ever look up from some lonely beach and see a far schooner? Well, when I write this poem, each phrase go be soaked in salt; I go draw and knot every line as tight as ropes in this rigging; in simple speech my common language go be the wind, my pages the sails of the schooner "Flight". But let me tell you how this business begin".[8]

  • "Zion Youth" contains a sample from "Dread Lion" by Scratch and The Upsetters and dialogue from the film Rockers spoken by Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace:

    "No matter what the weak heart say. And I know that I & I is like a tree, plant by the river of water, and not even the dog that piss against the wall of Babylon shall escape this judgment. For I & I know that all of the youth shall witness the day that Babylon shall fall!".[9]

  • "Shining Path": at the end of this track, the child on the beach saying "over here" is taken from the 1967 film Far from the Madding Crowd.
  • "Out of Heaven" contains a sample from "Before Long" by Ryuichi Sakamoto and an inexact extract from The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service:

    "while high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars"[10]

Personnel

Dan Donovan - additional keyboards
Earl Sixteen - vocals on tracks 1 & 6
Donna McKevitt - vocals on tracks 3 & 9; viola on track 2
  • Vicky Bogal - created the stained glass window featured on the album cover
  • Love, Respect and Admiration are also expressed towards a long list of friends and influences.

References

  1. ↑ "Jon Dennis analyses John Peel's top 20 albums". The Guardian. London. 12 October 2005. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "BBC - Radio 1 - Keeping It Peel - Festive 50s - 1995". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  3. ↑ "Chart Stats - Dreadzone". www.chartstats.com. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  4. ↑ Gumble, Daniel (February 24, 2017). "Official Charts Analysis: Rag'N'Bone Man holds top spot on albums chart". Music Week. Intent Media. Retrieved March 1, 2017. (Subscription required (help)).
  5. ↑ "Dreadzone : Interview". www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  6. ↑ "Dreadzone - Second Light (CD, Album) at Discogs". www.discogs.com. Retrieved 2010-01-23.
  7. ↑ Although the line was later used in The Goonies, the version sampled is Flynn's
  8. ↑ "The Schooner 'Flight' - Poem by Derek Walcott". famouspoetsandpoems.com. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  9. ↑ "Rockers (1978) - Memorable quotes". www.imdb.com. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  10. ↑ "The Shooting of Dan McGrew - Wikisource". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
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