A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
A general selection
Six records tracing one continuous line from a Kingston mixing desk to a Chicago dance floor. The claim is that dub never stopped: it changed tempo, crossed an ocean, and kept going under other names.
- Picks
- 6
- Years
- 1976–2013
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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The picks — selected, not ranked
Augustus Pablo / King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown
1976 · Yard Music
The starting point for the argument every record below repeats: a mix is a composition. The debt the others owe is as much to the economics that made a B-side worth rebuilding as to the technique itself.
Also on Dub, 1976, Roots, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
The Revolutionaries / Kunta Kinte Dub
1976 · Well Charge
A Kingston rhythm that reappeared, sped up, in British jungle two decades later. The clearest single piece of evidence for a continuity that is usually asserted rather than shown.
Also on Dub, 1976, Bass Weight
Shy FX & UK Apache / Original Nuttah
1994 · SOUR
Jungle at the exact moment the sound system and the sampler stopped being separate traditions. Everything Kingston built into a rhythm arrives here at twice the speed with none of it lost.
Also on Drum and Bass, 1994, Bass Weight, The Waxonia Desk — 160, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Wiley / Eskimo
2002 · Wiley Kat
The coldest record here and the one with the least obvious Jamaican inheritance. It earns its place by testing the line: grime keeps the sound system and throws the warmth away.
Also on Grime, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Burial / Archangel
2007 · Hyperdub
A label's most famous record, made almost entirely out of the residue of the others. Hauntology was a useful word for it precisely because the music is assembled from things that have already happened.
Also on Dubstep, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, The Waxonia Desk — The Night It Went National
DJ Rashad / Feelin
2013 · Hyperdub
Chicago, not London, and still recognisably part of the same project. Either the argument ends here or it stops being about Britain, and the record is better evidence for the second.
Also on Juke and Footwork, The Waxonia Desk — 160, The Waxonia Desk — Footwork Travels, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
About the curator
The people who write the rankings on this site. We keep the lists honest, we argue about the order, and we get asked the same question more than any other: where should someone actually start. These are our answers.