Late dub reggae godhead Lee “Scratch” Perry flung his creative moon dust so far and wide over six decades of music-making that pinning him down is impossible. King Perry, a posthumous entry in a discography that numbers hundreds of recordings, and apparently his final work, does little to untangle the thorny knot of Perry’s genius as producer, songwriter, singer, and musical mystic. But it does serve as a reminder—albeit a rather muted one—of Perry’s late popularity as a guest vocalist, a position he embraced on records by everyone from the Beastie Boys to the Orb.
King Perry is, in name, a Lee “Scratch” Perry solo record. But the album’s brash electronic instrumentation, from Grammy-nominated producer Daniel Boyle and Bristol maverick Tricky, have the unfortunate effect of making Perry feel like a guest on his own record, his voice often buried low in the mix, where it battles in vain against ear-rinsing sonics.
Perry was always open to new music, be it punk in the 1970s or ambient house in the 2000s. But King Perry’s experiments in blending reggae with electronica, breakbeats, and pumping 4/4 beats ring a little false. On “Jesus Life,” Perry’s gentle chitchat sounds lost and unloved amid an ominous electronic bass line, drum machine thud and (uncredited) Tricky guest vocal, a strand of saffron thrown into an unforgivingly thick musical stew.
“Green Banana” takes a further step backward, making both Perry and Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder—a potentially inspired vocal pairing—sound like they’ve wandered into the wrong studio, where some young punk is laying down acidic breakbeats. A lot of the album’s production, for all its genre-bending, is dull, and it doesn’t help that Perry’s vocals are borderline unintelligible, his gentle croak unable to compete against the studio noise.
This, more than anything, is King Perry’s downfall. Scratch may be best known as a producer—for Bob Marley, the Congos and the Clash, to name but three. But he was also an enchanting vocalist, his magical tone imparting a wistful melancholy on later albums like 2019’s Rainford. This, perhaps, could have been the case here. Perry’s vocal on “Goodbye,” apparently the last song he recorded, should be an emotional shoo-in. But its impact is deadened when overlaid with a prominent drum beat and humming synth line. There’s a fond farewell in there somewhere, but you have to strain like hell to hear it.
King Perry rings with the call of missed opportunity. Boyle did a decent retrogressive production job on Perry’s 2014 album Back on the Controls, and King Perry contains the germ of what could have been achieved by surrounding Scratch with modern production and guest vocalists. “100lbs of Summer” is a green shoot of summer-blushed pop reggae, thanks to a mournful horn line, rolling bass, and what sounds like genuine chemistry between Perry and London singer GreenTea Peng. That congenial feeling extends to Peng’s other appearance on the album, “Jah People in Blue Sky,” a sprawling, but very charming, digi-dub number with an ear-worm chorus and genuine momentum, while the guest-free “King of the Animals” locks into a satisfyingly hypnotic reggae groove that actually leaves some space for Perry to freestyle over.
It’s not enough, though. An unbowed creative spirit ran through Perry’s gloriously multifarious career; on King Perry he sounds frustratingly submissive, a passing supplicant in someone else’s court rather than a king on his throne.
