Lion's Den & Dub Al-kimiya meet The Rockers Disciples feat. Afrikan Simba - Open Your Eyes [LIONSCHOICE002]

mixed & dubbed by Manasseh
A1 // Lion's Den & Dub Al-kimiya meet The Rockers Disciples feat. Afrikan Simba - Open Your Eyes [Manasseh Vocal Mix]
A2 // Lion's Den & Dub Al-kimiya meet The Rockers Disciples - Open Your Dub 3 [Manasseh Dub]

mixed & dubbed by Roots Raid
B1 // Afrikan Simba - Open Your Eyes [Roots Raid Remix]
B2 // Open Your OverDub [Roots Raid Remix]

12" / 33 1/3 RPM / 4 Track EP / 180g / 500pcs. limited & hand-numbered
&
DIGIKALLY (MP3 / WAV / etc.)

This project just perfectly shows how multiple the paths of music can be…
After a long night session together at Yaam Berlin, I had to pick up Afrikan Simba from the hotel quite early due to inhuman check out times, so without sleep for me and little for him we went down into my studio to have a nice reasoning and after session chill out - listening to tunes and sharing a great vibe. As we still had an afternoon to spend until he had to catch his flight back to the UK, he suddenly asked me smiling: 'Do you have riddim? We might as well better use the time.' Always having loved his style and lyrics I of course agreed immediately and his question and remark made me pull out this riddim “Bubble Fi Roots” - as it was one of the tunes I was working on at the time with my bredda Dub Al-kimiya, still in a very early raw stage. But as he liked it, he caught a likkl sweet melody right away and started to scribble a few words, until he had a whole powerful song in no time.
We then took the raw sketch of those recordings and a sweet melodica version from a different session with the talented musician and producer Dr. Dubious from Italy to Planet Earth Studio to rework the initial programming with live drums and live bass with Berlin's dubmaster Aldubb, as well as live percussions in the Lion's Den studio with Brazilian percussionist K'boko Dub to give it a stronger feeling and live band vibe. Those multiple tracks were then arranged and first mixing sessions and experiments followed, as well as a rootikal dubplate redub by Aldubb at Planet Earth and a heavy steppas remix by Roots Raid who caught a vibe when passing through the Lion's Den and jamming with the multitracks before actually creating their own version with the vocal in their studio in France.
All in all a great journey and precious exchange, meeting, learning, growing experience, sharing our love for dub and music with wonderful people from all over…
As still the riddim did not come alive all the way we imagined it, as it's just not the same without an actual live band taking it rootikal style all together - full live band approach with fully-fledged musicians in contrast to some parts still being MIDI-programming - and as the idea just stuck in our head, we decided to take it even further, so I asked the great Rockers Disciples from France if they could imagine doing a RockDis rework of the riddim….
The new recordings were then given to the legendary dubmaster Manasseh - the same humble man I bought my first real mixing desk from, when I was living in Brixton - for proper treatment. With his incredible mixing skills and experience he finally gave the tune what it needed and made all elements fall into place nicely.
It's a great honour and joy to present to you the outcome of this collaboration… the final roots version with the Rockers Disciples mixed by Manasseh with some dubwise excursion - in the traditional stripped down drum and bass style - straight out of his studio and a steppas remix including a 'part 2 style' dub by Roots Raid.
(Ras Lion)

"open your eyes and you can see
everything that you wanna see
use your time so wisely
and you can be what you wanna be…"

Transferred to 1/2inch Tape for extra analogue warmth, mastered with care and pressed on high quality limited and hand-numbered 180g vinyl by Star Delta / Delta Disc, UK - of course also digikally available.
credits
released December 18, 2017

LION'S DEN /// www.lionsdensound.de /// produced by J. John aka Ras Lion & L. Gesser aka Dub Al-kimiya /// re-interpretation by The Rockers Disciples aka Jata (drums, keys), Garcia (bass), Clem Bernard (lead & rhythm guitar) & HP (percussions) /// recorded & engineered by HP Barnet @ HP Studio /// lyrics & voice by N. Nduka aka Afrikan Simba /// additional percussions by K'boko Dub aka F. Lima /// recorded by J. John aka Ras Lion @ Lion's Den Studio /// mixed and dubbed by N. Raphael aka Nick Manasseh @ The Yard (A) /// remixed by T. Cherrier & B. Bouniol aka Roots Raid, Art-X & Flying Fish (B) /// artwork by Martin Engelbogen /// mastered by Star Delta Mastering /// All rights reserved. © + ℗ 2017 Lion's Den