Ras Teo & Pablo Gad – Geddion Bootz – Review

November 2, 2020

Ras Teo and Pablo Gad: Geddion Bootz Single Review by Mr Topple for Pauzeradio.com.

You can tell when an artist is performing with one of their personal inspirations: the synergy and chemistry is apparent from the off. And that sentiment sears through Ras Teo’s latest release – with a British Roots legend.

Geddion Bootz, released via Forward Bound Records, sees Teo join forces with Pablo Gad. But the latter is not the only stellar artist to have their hand on this track. The rich and detailed production comes from Teo and the incomparable Fred Locks, with Ashanti Selah doing most of the arrangement. And then, one part of the always top-class Zion I Kings also features. It goes without saying that overall, Geddion Bootz is scintillating.

It is overly Roots driven, but the composition and arrangement avoid falling into simplistic traps – as the attention to detail is really rather excellent. Selah’s drums are part of Geddion Bootz’s driving force. Centred around a one drop, where the snare hits the two and four and the kick its opposite numbers, more detail has been added on top of this. Hi-hats use demisemiquaver-to-semiquaver-to-quaver rolls, but these focus on the offbeats. Additional clashes on the cymbals enhance this, and the sums of these parts is a driving beat, which Zion I Kings’s David “Jah David” Goldfine’s bass then doubles down on.

It is heavily syncopated, running a melody up and down the diatonic scale, focusing on quavers and their semi cousins. Goldfine has smoothed its timbre out, though, avoiding over-reliance on picking – which creates a frantic yet resonant sound. Teo and Locks’s production on the bassline is interesting, though – as the dB level is such that its sound is not overbearing, drawing the ear to the rest of the complex arrangement. Daddy Natural’s lead guitar then complements the bass, running a similar melodic and rhythmic motif but with additional riffing and a more staccato technique, clipping the notes to create something more edgy.

Geddion Bootz also features some standard Roots devices. Goldfine is back on the pick guitar, running an incessant skank across the track. Selah’s keys perform a bubble rhythm, which has the traditional additional syncopated riffs across the treble clef at points. He also gives us a fine electric organ line – full of vibrato, but appearing fleetingly at points, with regal chords that stretch across the bar on the intro, the bridge and towards the end of Geddion Bootz. Selah has been a busy man on the track, as he is also responsible (along with Teo) for the additional percussive lines. There’s a great use of fluttering djembe (or similar), tinkering away just out of earshot via the right input. A slide whistle does a glissando at the end of some bars. And a pointed vibraslap finishes off proceedings perfectly.

Another central piece of Geddion Bootz’s puzzle is Locks’s horn arrangement – featuring Barry Bailey on trombone and Kemroy Bonfield on sax. Heavily harmonised (as opposed to a more traditional Ska arrangement, which works an octave apart) it’s a clever piece of composition from Locks. At times, the section mimics the main melody; at others Bailey and Bonfield offer responses to the main melodic call, and then sometimes they pick up some of the hi-hats demi/semi/quaver rhythmic motif. Both artists swerve between short, staccato, tongued notes and smoother, more elongated ones. Bailey and Bonfield bring urgency to Locks’s arrangement, and this leaves the horn section as the instrumental centre piece of the composition. Backing vocals from Selah and Livity round off this highly impressive piece of work beautifully – working around vowel-sound harmonisation and straight harmonic accompaniment. All in all, Geddion Bootz is a fulsome, rich composition which provides an ingenious base for the two main vocalists to work from.

Teo is his usual, impressive self. Of note is that versus his recent collab with the late Vaughn Benjamin (All Hail, of which you can read Pauzeradio’s full review here), he is far more punctuated with his performance; fitting the musical base perfectly. He clips many of his notes to fit the syllable phrasing, although his trademark, elongated vibrato is still present. There’s a quietly confident approach to Teo’s performance in terms of dynamics, too – as he refuses to unnecessarily overstate things with forcefulness. There’s something of the Soul here, as he impassionedly works around Rootsy dotted notation but with the phrasing and timbre of a seasoned vocalist. Meanwhile, Gad works as the perfect counterpoint. His slightly more gravely tone juxtaposes Teo’s well, but he feeds into the driving nature of the track with his clipped phrasing, too. There’s almost a clash of the vibratos, as Gad employs a heavily elongated and pulsing technique across his as well. The two artists are a perfect match, as they lyrically make a searing and pertinent cry of faith and the need for it in modern society – turning Geddion Bootz into a Roots-led Song of Praise.

Selah then provides the remix duties with the Abyssinia Dub. It’s a complete transformation from the original, which is wonderful to see. More focus on the bass is present; the drums still run their complex rhythm; much of the other instrumentation has either been stripped away or reinvented with heavy, stretched and decaying reverb – and the inclusion of some additional, haunting and compressed tin drums, with flashes of inspired EQ’ing, is glorious. It’s a pleasure to hear a proper Dub remix, instead of the often quite lazy versions that are par for the course nowadays.

Geddion Bootz is very strong works from Teo, Locks, Gad, Selah and the rest of the team. Musically complex, it is elevated above standard Roots fayre by the sheer attention to detail. The production and engineering are sympathetic to the thrust of the track’s narrative; Teo and Gad are on-point and Selah’s remix is brilliant. A sterling contribution to this year’s rooster of quality Roots tracks.