The point of departure for the book Black Ark with Lee "Scratch" Perry (19362021), a Jamaican musical and visual artist who was based in Switzerland, is a detailed inventory of photographs and writings (Spring 2021) from the Black Ark Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, where Lee produced his music from 1973 on.
He was a seminal pioneer of dub, an electronic subgenre of reggae that uses sampling, looping, remixing, reverb and echoes to create new songs as well as rework and appropriate pre-recorded songs and tracks. Perry was involved in the conception of the book in its early stages. It also interweaves various media and chronologies. The new photographs of the Black Ark Studios are juxtaposed with stills from old documentaries and archival photos. Furthermore, extended captions by Perry's biographer provide the backdrop for a kaleidoscopic panorama of Perry's eclectic and ingenious work.
