Strut presents the first new installment in its acclaimed Inspiration Information studio collaboration series for over two years with a superb new sound clash featuring sweet-voiced Jamaican legend Cornell Campbell and the excellent London-based reggae and Afro-dub collective, Soothsayers, led by Robin Hopcraft and Idris Rahman.
The pairing first took shape through a chance meeting between Cornell
Campbell and Hopcraft in Kingston, Jamaica early in 2011. A session was
arranged at Bunny Lee’s recording studio in West Kingston and, within days,
the collaboration produced the sweet ‘I’ll Never Leave’, a homage to
Cornell’s island home country in Parish of St Elizabeth. The dub version of
the track was released alongside Soothsayers’ ‘We’re Not Leaving’ in
August 2011 and
the Cornell Campbell version followed on a 45 on Soothsayers’ own Red Earth
label a month later. Now signed to Strut, the collaboration has recorded a full
album, a conscious and roots-based set with Cornell Campbell’s iconic, sweet
vocals underpinned by deep, dubby rhythm section work and the fresh, intricate
arrangements of the Soothsayers.
Review
With his sweet falsetto and smooth croon, Cornell Campbell is a heralded
name for the reggae faithful, but he's often in search of a suitable showcase
and seems to go years without finding one. In 2005, he experienced a career
renaissance when he joined the German techno-dub team Rhythm & Sound on
their single “King in My Empire,” but it's been drips and drabs since then,
and now it's a full-on flood. Part of the Strut label's collaborative series
Inspiration Information, the wonderful Nothing Can Stop Us teams Cornell with
the London-based dub crew Soothsayers, and while previous entries have found a
reggae great meeting thoroughly modern producers (Horace Andy with Ashley Beedle
being one example), it isn't the usual revelatory genre-buster. It is
revelatory, though, as Cornell has found his ultimate backing band in this
lively but anchored crew, who kick it into double-time overdrive during the
great “We Want to Be Free.” The track crackles with that Marley & the
Wailers' energy, and yet the uptempo “Conqueror” steps both lightly and
lively, playing to singer's strengths and winding up with that quintessential,
dreamy, and majestic Campbell cut. The title track is an intoxicating mash of
revolution music and lovers rock as “Nothing can stop us, we gonna take it
slow” becomes a chant to chill the masses, and while most of the album plays
it straight and earnest, “Never Give Up” is pure joy, supported by the
boisterous, horn-driven funk of Soothsayers. Closing with a slow journey down a
river called “Jah Jah Me No Born Ya,” Nothing Can Stop Us is a triumph for
the backing band, but Campbell's number has been due for years, and now that
it's been pulled, it's time to wake the town and tell the people. David
Jeffries – Allmusic