Lee Perry - Rainford (LP)

Rainford finds Lee “Scratch” Perry looking straight into the mirror and smiling at what he sees. The title nods to his birth name, Rainford Hugh Perry. In 2019 he teamed back up with Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound for a record that feels both intimate and cosmic, like someone paging through a scrapbook while the controls of the spaceship blink in the corner. Sherwood has been one of Perry’s most simpatico collaborators for decades, and that chemistry shows. The production is crisp and heavy, full of spring reverb, tape grit, and the sly stereo games that make you lean closer to the speakers.

“Makumba Rock” is the obvious gateway, a single that thumps along on a loping bassline while Perry toasts and chants with that mischievous storyteller tone. It’s playful, but there’s muscle in the groove and detail in the arrangement. “African Starship” stretches out into a dub voyage, with synth ripples and vapor trails of melodica and percussion swirling around his voice. You get the sense of a veteran navigator enjoying the long view, dropping aphorisms and jokes that double as life lessons. The album’s mood is reflective without turning elegiac, which feels right for a figure who treated the studio like a living organism and never stopped poking at its circuits.

Sherwood keeps the palette lean, trusting in bottom-end pressure and space to do the work. That helps Perry’s late-period voice, which sits higher and lighter than in his Black Ark days, to cut through clearly. The result is a record that carries the warmth of old Kingston dub sessions and the precision of a modern UK control room. On good speakers or a solid pair of headphones you can trace the delay trails, follow a hi-hat splash from left to right, and feel the subs move air in the room. The Rainford vinyl in particular brings out that physicality. Drop the needle and the bass arrives like a friendly tide, rolling in and out with patience.

Context matters with this one. Perry released countless projects over the years, some scattershot, some essential. Rainford sits in that latter camp. It plays like a late-career self-portrait, concise and focused, with enough hooks to pull in anyone who knows him only through the old Bob Marley and the Wailers lore or the legend of the Black Ark. There is history encoded in the record’s textures, yet it never feels like museum music. Sherwood’s mix choices keep the songs alive, teasing little instrumental cameos, then muting them at just the right moment. That tension between revelation and restraint keeps you listening for the next flicker of magic.

One of the joys here is how Perry turns phrases into talismans. He’ll circle an image, tweak a syllable, laugh, and the rhythm section answers back. It’s theater and ritual. There are flashes of autobiography, nods to spiritual warfare, and plenty of sly humor. If you want a compare-and-contrast exercise, cue up Heavy Rain, the 2019 dub companion Sherwood built from these sessions. Hearing how the songs dissolve into pure texture is a reminder of the architecture inside Rainford, and the Brian Eno guest spot on “Here Come the Warm Dreads” underlines just how far Perry’s influence reaches.

For anyone who likes to actually feel dub rather than just study it, this is a record to own, not just stream. Lee Perry albums on vinyl reward the ritual, and Rainford is no exception. If you’re crate-digging in a Melbourne record store, or browsing vinyl records Australia wide, keep an eye out. The pressing is sturdy, the noise floor stays low, and the low end breathes. It sits nicely next to other Lee Perry vinyl from the On-U era, and it makes a persuasive case for buying recent work alongside the seventies classics. If you need to buy Lee Perry records online, this is the one I nudge people toward when they want something modern that still has the deep roots feel.

Rainford proves that Perry’s spark hadn’t dimmed. It’s compact, witty, and tuned to a frequency that rewards repeat listens. Put it on a quiet night, let the echoes build a room inside your room, and you’ll hear a master who never stopped experimenting, still finding fresh colors in the delay trails.