Sabwackie Presents Five The Hard Way – Tachyon Records

There’s a warm, woody late-’80s dancehall feel here, more live-band and street-corner than digital and brittle, with the groove carrying a mellow but stubborn pulse across the whole set. “Five The Hard Way” gathers voices like Dada Wasp, Johnnie Rice, Michael English, Legendary and Steve Knight, and Sonny “Sabwackie” Ochiai keeps the arrangement rooted in that Wackie’s/Tachyon house sound, the kind that lets a tune like Dada Wasp’s “Change Your Ways” lean into the rhythm without crowding it. The project was voiced at Creative Sound Studio in Kingston and recorded and mixed at Wackie’s in Englewood, which gives it that cross-Atlantic reggae grain. There’s a nice little lift when Steve Knight links with Legendary on “Down In Jamaica, ” and then it just fades out with a final solo cut hanging in the air.