The Congos - Heart Of The Congos (LP) 2022 (Mint (M))

Heart Of The Congos, released in 1977, is one of the defining productions of Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark era, cut with a studio band that included Boris Gardiner on bass and Ernest Ranglin on guitar. Perry's dense, echo-laden mixing style wraps around the trio's close harmony singing across ten tracks, giving the record a thick, otherworldly atmosphere distinct from the more stripped-down roots reggae typical of the period, closer to a slow-moving fog than a straightforward vocal session. It's widely regarded as among the strongest work to come out of Perry's Black Ark studio, and one of the era's defining reggae records more broadly.