Scientist - Your Teeth In My Neck

Scientist has always been one of my favourite sound engineers, and I'm going to show you just why.

Born Hopeton Brown, Scientist's first contact with electronic equipment came from when he used to work for his dad, repairing radios and televisions.

Soon after as a teenager in the 70s, he became King Tubby's assistant at his studio in Waterhouse. When, then Prince, Jammy, failed to turn up to mix Barrington Levy's recording, Scientist was given his first chance. On My Way/Collie Weed (on the My Conversation riddim) was a big success. Impressed by his efforts, Scientist would become Tubby's protégé.

Early 1980s, now an accomplished studio engineer, he left Tubby's to work at Channel One. This is where is where he gained his fame and aquired a signature sound working with the Roots Radics.

Over these years he released several dub albums with Greensleeves, Your Teeth In My Neck is included in one of these.

Scientist Rids the World of the Curse of the Evil Vampires (1981), one of his best achievements,can be seen as a concept album. Said to have been mixed at midnight on Friday the 13th. June 1981, the album is horror-themed as scary voices and Hooo ha haaaa's are voiced over the dubs.

All tracks were laid by the Roots Radics before being mixed at Tubby's.

Your Teeth In My Neck is a spectacular dub of Michael Prophet's Love and Unity, a melancholic song opposing greed and rightousness.

Scientist leaves in the singer's first verse, as he comments on materialism and the flicking [of] ratchets, the small pocket-knives that were so predominant in Jamaica.

Some take money
And make big enemy
While I man take love and make good friend
Some are stick in pocket
The other are flicking ratchet
But I man is there to teach you what's right from wrong

Oyyyy......

From there, echo is pushed to its fullest, and a whopping bass booms in as we picture Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and other characters from the album's cover fleeing Scientist's sound system, pictured as a source of rightousness. The song retains the original's melancholy as Michael Prophet's voice resurges throughout and in no way meant to be played low.

Beautiful.