Lone Ark meets The 18th Parallel – Showcase Vol. 2

Fruits Records – Vinyl, digital

Text: Volk­er Barsch

Any­one talk­ing about con­tem­po­rary roots and dub pro­duc­tions today sim­ply can­not over­look The 18th Par­al­lel and Rober­to Sánchez. Both the Gene­va col­lec­tive and the Span­ish pro­duc­er have long estab­lished them­selves as inter­na­tion­al play­ers with a string of first-class releas­es, while also col­lab­o­rat­ing reg­u­lar­ly — on Kumar’s Tales of Real­i­ty, for exam­ple, the Roots Archi­tects and Dub Avalanche projects, and the com­pi­la­tion All Fruits Ripe, released ear­li­er this spring. What unites both sides is an unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to warm, deep, ana­logue sounds that evoke the lega­cy of the 1970s while still feel­ing fresh, dynam­ic and authen­tic.

What is less well known is that Rober­to Sánchez not only pro­duces, mix­es and plays instru­ments, but also likes to try his hand at singing under the alias Lone Ark. Five years ago, he released the strong show­case album Lone Ark Meets The 18th Par­al­lel Vol. 1. On the atmos­pher­ic black-and-white cov­er of Vol­ume 2, the singer pos­es in a vin­tage coat, flat cap and full beard, look­ing like a char­ac­ter straight out of a 1970s French gang­ster movie. His soul­ful tenor and med­i­ta­tive, sooth­ing deliv­ery, famil­iar from Vol­ume 1, are any­thing but dark, how­ev­er. The album fol­lows the same struc­ture as its pre­de­ces­sor: six tracks in show­case for­mat, mean­ing six vocal cuts, each fol­lowed by its cor­re­spond­ing dub ver­sion.

The entire project was record­ed in ana­logue fash­ion, using an Otari MX 80 2‑inch 24-track tape machine, with Math­ias Liengme at Geneva’s Bridge Stu­dio and Rober­to Sánchez at the A‑Lone Ark Muzik Stu­dio in San­tander. Sánchez han­dled all the mix­ing him­self. The musi­cians involved are mem­bers of The 18th Par­al­lel and Sánchez’s Lone Ark Rid­dim Force. A new addi­tion is Théo Hanser, whose won­der­ful flute work leaves its mark espe­cial­ly on “Man Kill Man”, an anti-war song in which Lone Ark calls for peace and a good life: “Heav­en on earth is what we deserve.”

The horns and key­boards are used with equal taste and restraint. But the tracks are dri­ven above all by the rhythm sec­tion of Rober­to Sánchez on bass, Antonin Chate­lain on drums and Jaime “Pipe” Hero on Synare effects — a com­bi­na­tion steeped in the spir­it of Sly & Rob­bie and, at times, Wackie’s. In keep­ing with that sound, Lone Ark’s pas­sion­ate “Oh Lord!” out­cry on “Morn­ing Bless­ing” is rem­i­nis­cent of Michael Rose, whose great­est suc­cess­es with Black Uhu­ru were insep­a­ra­bly linked to the “Rid­dim Twins”.

Rober­to Sánchez and The 18th Par­al­lel have gen­uine­ly found their own roots for­mu­la, one they can return to again and again to cre­ate new and excit­ing music. It would be far too easy — and far too dis­mis­sive — to write off their approach as con­ser­v­a­tive or back­ward-look­ing. Quite the oppo­site: in an age of AI-gen­er­at­ed fake and dis­pos­able music sweep­ing across the globe, there is only one adjec­tive that tru­ly fits their stub­born com­mit­ment to ana­logue, organ­ic roots sound: rev­o­lu­tion­ary!

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