Certified Dope, Vol. 1

Back in the mid to late 1990s, when Brooklyn was still dangerous, the WordSound label crept out of the Williamsburg/Greenpoint sewers. Run by journalist and producer Skiz Fernando and a crew of like-minded explorers, they made dub with impossibly deep bass (sometimes with help from Bill Laswell) and a mystical, psychedelic perspective. This compilation lays out a sound and a worldview that the label would explore for several years. Tracks like Sub Dub’s “Monuments On Earth,” Qaballah Steppers’ “Majesty Dub,” and Automaton’s “Painless Steel” were crawlingly slow and trafficked in a kind of visionary paranoia, while Dr. Israel’s uniquely New York spin on ragga and jungle made “Saidisyabruklinmon (Nobwoycyantess)” a rare uptempo outburst, and Fernando’s dark hip-hop alter ego, Spectre, appeared on the final track, “Crooked.”