Rebel Control Check: Soundsystem One!

It’s always a plea­sure to hear from the boys of Rebel Con­trol i.e. Andy Baron and Con­crete John­son (his musi­cal part­ner in crime).

For a good and proper 2 months in 2010, this teaser post almost beat out the mango as one of my top reads. I vividly remem­ber relay­ing this fact to lead singer Andy. His response: “Well to be truth­ful I think it’s a bit unfair of you to put us up against a mango, we stood no chance ”

They are work­ing on their new album Soundsys­tem One and it promises to be fiyah! Their first album played to a more tra­di­tional or rootsy, clas­sic feel.  This was most appar­ent in the sin­gle “Hold onto Love”

Soundsys­tem One, as Andy explains is more up-tempo—a  mix­ture of party tunes.  Fans, new and old, don’t need to worry though, the boys haven’t strayed far from their roots as they con­tinue to explore con­scious lyrics on this one.

The fol­low­ing pack­age, straight from the heart of a lion brought me back to those 1st con­ver­sa­tions with Andy and the utter infec­tious­ness of this band.

Rebel Con­trol embod­ies a pow­er­ful mes­sage, not just in ballsy words and actions, but in the very real story of hard­work along a jour­ney to the real­iza­tion of dreams.

Rebel Con­trol evolved from the now noto­ri­ous reg­gae jams held by Andy Baron and Con­crete John­son in a derelict shop in West Lon­don spawn­ing the album Jam­min At Rebel H.Q. mixed by Mike Pelan­coni (Lily Allen / Gre­gory Isaacs). The band’s love and respect for reg­gae is still very much in evi­dence but the sound now also encom­passes more cur­rent vibes along with ele­ments of dance­hall and hip hop. Rebel Con­trol are fast becom­ing fes­ti­val favorites mash­ing up main stages through­out the UK and Europe, most recently play­ing in Poland and Mon­tene­gro and sup­port­ing acts rang­ing from Tinie Tem­pah to reg­gae leg­ends Luciano and Mad professor.

As the band con­tin­ues to fine-tune Soundsys­tem One, look out for the sin­gle Whine Down (Feel The Hap­pi­ness) due for release this summer.

The album Jam­min At Rebel H.Q. and the sin­gles Sirens and Hold On To Love are avail­able on iTunes and all major down­load sites.

Look­ing for­ward to Soundsys­tem One! Boom!