RHYTHM & SOUND

Music a fe rule.

Apr 24, 2026

Some records get so deeply ingrained into your musical consciousness they simply become part of you.

Submerged into the fundamentals of how you process and navigate reality.

Fused into mind, body and soul.

To the point you almost don’t need to listen to them anymore because they are so familiar and well-worn. Like an old friend you strike up with immediately no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other.

Rhythm and Sound produce those kinds of records.

While Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus’ Basic Channel project undoubtedly sits at the pinnacle of techno, their dub and reggae output as Rhythm & Sound has always spoken to me on a deeper level.

Intuitively the project makes no sense. Why would two German ‘pasty white boy’ (a YouTube comment) techno producers end up creating some of the most perfectly formed dub reggae music ever cut to wax?

Having indelibly stamped their mark on techno, it would have been easy to rest on laurels, keep repeating the formula and/or head out onto the club circuit as DJs.

Instead they chose to even-more-fully immerse themselves in the dub processes they’d so successfully fused with the machine funk coming out of Detroit; taking their exploration of reggae and sound system culture to its most advanced and complete conclusion, with extraordinary results.

SHOWCASE

At some point in my late teens I was handed a CD that would set my musical direction of travel from that point forward. Showcase, a compilation of Rhythm & Sound’s combined efforts with Dominican mic-man Paul St Hilaire, aka Tikiman.

Built from a series of 10” releases on the Burial Mix label, established in 1996 for the specific purpose of platforming Rhythm & Sound’s vocal collaborations, the LP showcased three artists expertly blending the Jamaican dub reggae template with minimal techno principles in what amounts to a groundbreaking fusion of musical cultures.

From the opening bars I was hooked.

The depth and purity of the subs.

The patient yet relentless insistence of the kicks.

The sizzle of the snares; their relics and remnants skittering away into the distance after each hit.

And, of course, those blessed vocals. From a man who would very quickly become one of the defining voices of electronic music; delivering a spiritual message in the true unifying tradition of rastafarian culture.

I was lucky enough to see the trio live at the first Bloc festival back in 2007. A warm, dubbed-out three-hour embrace on a Sunday morning after two or three solid days of techno fury.

In all honesty, I remember very little of it.

But we deya…

Two cuts of choice:

‘Ruff Way’

‘What a Mistry’

It goes without saying you should check out the whole LP.

THE ARTISTS

Having introduced Tikiman to an international audience, R&S would go on to work with an extraordinary array of roots and reggae vocalists, including:

Jamaican royalty Cornell Campbell; the Coxsone, Trojan and Studio One veteran who vocalled one of my all time personal classics, ‘King In My Empire’

Closely followed by another all time percy classic, ‘Queen In My Empire’ vocalled by the extraordinary Jennifer Lara:

The Chosen Brothers, whose discography extended back to the mid-1970s through releases on seminal reggae labels like Wackie’s, and whose 1980 reggae classic ‘March Down Babylon’ would provide the structural underpinnings for the R&S version ‘Mash Down Babylon’

”Politricks have failed, they let murderers invade…’

And while we’re here, I can’t ignore what is probably my favourite Tikiman tune. The spiritual peak of ‘Jah Rules Over Us’

All of these tracks and more are compiled on the all time classic 2004 LP ‘w/ The Artists’ which was accompanied by an equally strong dub version LP (aka without the vocals) ‘The Versions’.

Timeless, timeless music.

We really don’t know how lucky we are.

SEE MI YAH

In true dancehall style, a single riddim track from R&S provides the bedrock for a series of vocal versions.

Some of these artists, like Bobbo Shanti, Walda Gabriel and Rod of Iron have very little (if any) further formal discograpy and almost zero digital footprint, despite delivering some of the strongest material in the R&S catalogue:

‘Poor People Must Work’ w/ Bobbo Shanti

‘Boss Man’ w/ Walda Gabriel

‘Lightning Storm’ w/ Rod of Iron (My personal favourite from the project)

Do yourself a favour and liten to the whole thing start to finish:

The 7” set is one of my favourite pieces in my collection.

SEE MI YAH (REMIXES)

The boys reach back to their house and techno roots to reshape and reimagine the See Mi Yah project. It’s a great and varied project with some absolute donnies on deck.

Three selections for your delectation:

‘See Mi Version’ (Basic Reshape)

‘Let We Go’ (Villalobos Remix)

Ricardo delivering the weirdness as only he knows how.

‘Poor People Must Work’ (Carl Craig Remix)

A Make Me classic from the Cat in the Hat.

RHYTHM & SOUND

Last but most certainly not least.

While they were busy redefining the template of dub reggae music, R&S were still finding time to maintain the Basic Channel template and casually knock out some of the most essential and timeless dub techno records ever made.

1997 / RS-01 ‘Music A Fe Rule’ (part 1 and 2) w/ Tikiman