The UpsetterFrom musician to record producer, from sage to eccentric, Lee 'Scratch' Perry is one of the giants of the reggae scene. Regarded as the creator of the dub sound, Perry walks a fine line between genius and madness and this acclaimed documentary pulls no punches in exploring the extraordinary career of this music icon.
Utilising all manner of concert, home and archival footage, the documentary has many textures and hues as an erratic course is charted through Perry's life and work. His life of course is inseperable from the music and like many artists who've put themselves at the front of their form, the path is a minefield of great triumph and great tribulation. Perry's life is no exception. From the heady days of producing and writing with Bob Marley during his trajectory to international superstar, to a magnet for the darker side of dread culture, to a decade of self-imposed exile in the UK, Perry's journey has been anything but a stroll - and you'd have to say he has the scars to prove it.
It's obvious from the film that Perry's mind is so full of stream-of-consciousness that Perry himself finds it impossible to contain, calling on random stimuli in his verbal communication, which moves from the profound to the incomprehensible. Likewise his dub sounds embrace all manner of 'found' stimuli and stream-of-consiousness material - almost as if there's simply not enough in the instruments themselves.
The result? The fullest of music and the fullest of lives.
