Bandelero Riddim – Dennis Star International

Rough cut. Bandelero catches that late-’80s dancehall swing with a grimy, horn-stabbed feel, and the juggling pairs heavyweight voices with a couple of sly combinations: Cobra’s “Sound Bwoy Hear Say, ” Cocoa Tea’s “I’m The Roughest, ” and the Pinchers/Bounty Killer cut are the ones that jump out first. The set runs eight tracks deep, with the riddim circling through different takes on the same core groove rather than padding things out with extras, so it plays like a proper sound-clash era compilation. Dennis Star International handled the production, and the lineup threads together established names and younger firebrands in the way those Jamaican studio projects often did in 1989. The tracklist also includes Mad Cobra, General TK and Tony Rebel.