Katsu - Awakening Katsu

It has long been Bristol Archive Records mission to tell the story of reggae in the city, and we plan to bring a similar level of coverage to the 1990s as we have for previous decades. To kick things off, we have chosen an album from Katsu, now mostly forgotten. They burst onto the Bristol scene in 1995 and over the next couple of years played numerous gigs at Bristol and Bath's top venues, including to thousands at the Bristol Community Festival at Ashton Court and even an appearance at Glastonbury Festival.

Although their gigs received wide acclaim, and they recorded plenty of music, they only managed to self-release a four-track EP and a CD album, both of which sold in tiny numbers. Gigs live in people's memories, but physical releases that transcend generations and tend to be the key to keeping a band's music current, an element Katsu's legacy has been lacking.

The band had originally come together as the musicians behind the first four Armagideon albums and included Phil a former Rhythmite and member of Vin Gordon and the Authentics, Wilbert who had engineered for The Revolutionary Dub Warriors and worked with Adrian Sherwood as well as Guy who would form Dub From Atlantis. They were key members of the local reggae scene, experienced musicians and their recordings are just as good as their live shows were.

We decided their 1997 album "Awakening" deserved the release it didn't receive back then, a proper pressing run with distribution, making it available to a wider audience, doing justice to the music. Rather than copying the CD release of the original, we have gone with both the traditional and current reggae format of choice, vinyl. We have selected eight tracks and re-sequenced them to create a very strong LP.

Side A features three strong vocals, leading off with the excellent "Tenement"; the vocals are complemented by saxophone and a slight dub influence. The following two vocal cuts, "Inna England" and the title track "Awakening" head into a more roots direction. All three vocals are highly polished and could easily have come from a decade or more before, timeless, quality reggae. The A side is rounded off with a horns-driven instrumental before Side B heads into the realm of dub, the music that had originally brought the band together and at which they excelled.