House Of Assembly

Obscure electro-reggae-rock is in the crosshair on Isle of Jura’s latest reissue winner

Orignally dispensed in 1988 and now hard or expensive to find 2nd hand, ‘Hot Rock’ is one of a small handful of records released by Waterhouse-via-Pennsylvania roots reggae band House of Assembly. It’s a wicked bit of post-Sleng Teng digidub with feet in two eras, marrying sugary mid ‘80s soul with updated memory bank of laser zaps, crisp 707 drum machine punctuation, and sampler and FX graffiti that really comes into its own on the dub, while the original is fired up with full vocal, natty synth vamps, and jagged arps that parallel actions from UK to US thru South Africa and Belgium at the time.