Horace Andy - Dance Hall Style LP

In 1982, Horace Andy carried his sweet, sweet falsetto to Brooklyn to work with Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes. Bullwackie had grown up in Trenchtown alongside friends including Alton Ellis, Peter Tosh, and Ken Boothe but had relocated to Brooklyn in 1967 with his family. Not long after, he built a sound system and started throwing parties. Like his music-producing friends back in Kingston, Bullwackie constructed a brilliantly rickety studio in a Brooklyn room.

Once in the studio, Andy and Bullwackie weren’t in any rush. Songs that a few years prior would have faded out at the four-minute mark stretched out, reggae-disco style, to six-plus minutes, as if to ensure that the rhythm and vocal melody gets girded into your memory bank. Except the sound wasn’t reggae disco; it was slower, deeper, and much, much darker. Synths traced almost goth-like counter-melodies to Andy’s liquid voice.