Super Ape Inna Jungle

The first thing you should know is that this is not a jungle version of Lee Perry & the Upsetters' Super Ape album. Instead, it's a collaboration between Perry and the production team of Douggie Digital and Juggler, who basically provide beds of bass-heavy jungle as musical settings for scraps of Perry's vocals. The profit margin on a project like this has got to be pretty high, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the music. On "Nasty Spell," the jumpy breakbeats, synthesized chords, and sonar blips roil and surge beneath Perry's barely intelligible utterances. He makes himself clearer on the equally propulsive "Why Complaining?" (though, as usual, he's not saying much that will make sense to the earthbound mind). The last two tracks on the disc are both relatively straightforward dub mixes by Mad Professor. These would've been more effective breaking the tension at intervals during the program, but, hey, that's why CD players are programmable. ~ Rick Anderson