Urbis is a futuristic building housing ‘the museum of the city’, a curious place to find the deeply spiritual, primeval reggae of the Congos. To coincide with the release of Fisherman Style (Blood & Fire BAFCD 050), the label had booked the ground floor and many, many people turned out to share in the celebration.
With free fried fish being served, the evening opened with the preview of a couple of Blood & Fire related short documentary films, a wonderful home movie ‘The Making Of Fisherman Style’ directed by Congo Ashanti Roy and then The Blood And Fire Worldwide Special Film by Dom Sotgiu, which followed the label’s sound system around the world and featured the likes of U Brown, Ranking Joe, Horace Andy, Trinity and others – both movies drew spontaneous applause from the audience. After a break it was time for the two sound systems (and free Guinness punch!) – Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald of Berlin’s cutting edge Rhythm & Sound outfit with the excellent and personable vocalist Paul St. Hilaire, who had been signing autographs and chatting to fans for most of the evening (Rhythm & Sound mixed and edited the new CD of course, and Paul has one of the most outstanding tracks on the set with ‘Carthage’) and the renowned Blood & Fire sound itself with selector Dom and charismatic Country Culture; Country is also on the new CD of course.

An extremely enjoyable night and I hope Blood and Fire will start a trend. And do check the CD (www.bloodandfire.co.uk)!