The interview in London Town with Simon Tyszko (bless you David Ellis & Julian Firth for the introduction) inspired me to create this Dubstance – Greatest Misses compilation. I realized people need to listen to some of my best songs from the last three years of constant musical discipline. Some of my proudest moments are all here including the three radio show themes for Everyday Is Halloween, Devils Jukebox and the PostPunk Dubby Party. Meeting Dub Colossus, Transglobal Underground, Marius Costache & Petru Birladeanu has been a blessing.

These tunes were played all over the world by legends like Dennis Bovell, Steve Barker and Don Letts on: BBC 6 Music, BBC Lancashire, Soho Radio, ResonanceFM, The Music Galaxy Radio, Radio Buena Vida, Australia's National Roots'n'Reggae Show, Culture Dub from Poitiers, Berlin's Zonic Radio, Poland's Czwórka and Belgium's Dub Front.

The Silence tune is the blueprint of Transylvanian duppy dub. Created with the one and only Nick Page the Dub Colossus aka Count Dubulah in the pandemic. This one is my first solo song and the intro to my Lil Obeah in Dub sold out CD with the Wormhole World label/ NGO from Lancashire. It contains my spooky vocals next to haunting female choir vocals sampled from Krystof Komeda’s soundtrack for Fearless Vampire Killers, Roman Polanskis film with Sharon Tate. Brilliant dub work from Dub Master Dub Colossus who plays electric bass and guitar, synths and piano.

Nick Page aka Dub Colossus aka Count Dubulah was one of my mentors. He was the one who pushed me into creating a record label for what he called Gothic Dub and I call Transylvanian Dub. His work is more than inspiration to me, he was half Greek and is a sound painter just like his father fills canvases he used to sculpt with sound. In Dub. Instigated by Joe Gibbs.

My mentors Tim Whelan & Hamid Mantu who were back in the nineties also joined by Count Dubulah have put out their Transglobal Underground debut album Dream of 100 Nations in 1993. Back then I was in the most frightening period of my life having seen Stephen Kings IT with Tim Curry on videotape. That film really left a mark on me and so has their tune Zombie’ites. I can’t believe how late I discovered it 5 years ago thanks to Dub Colossus and how amazing Tuups vocals on this one are. Tuup channels Haitian Voodoo like no other vocalist and he can turn the spookyness level up to eleven. I feel so blessed to have remixed two songs from their Walls Have Ears album last year with Marius Costache @ Studio148!

Before I created my solo project Obeah fka Lil Obeah I had a trio with my schoolmates the Gabar brothers called Crowd Control. Our obsession with videogames was fuelling this electronic fusion music, but we also liked to pay our dues to the pioneers of Romanian Electronic Music. In this case my Transylvanian mentor Rodion GA, who put out sold out records on the London-based labels Strut Records, BBE Music and Inversions. Rodi was the one who pushed me into doing my solo work, into starting producing music and into creating an authentic Transylvanian sound. He hated reggae music, but he knew when something was special. He blessed and liked my first two songs with Dub Colossus The Spell and The Silence very much! Bless you Rodi wherever you are transmitting from now!

My last song with Nick Dubulah, the Dub Colossus, who died two months after the release is a song that samples a local war horror film called Forest of the Hanged. The lyrics are from a gypsy romance curse very much in the vein of how obeah magic was used by Jamaicans. I just love how Nick was inspired to push me in finding a santur player, Marian Serban, and dubbing traditional local instruments like that. This is practically the most haunting party song I ever put out even though I have lots of dancehall tunes that will surely make you move your feet. Try it on with some palinca and make sure you don’t lose your mind and soul.

I like the fact in am not alone. I feel part of an international community of likeminded friends and collaborators, instigators. I met Time & Extra Kool two rappers from Denver through Mark Stewart as he was working with Time in the US label, Scott Crows Emergency Hearts, from Austin Texas. Time & Extra Kool are my generation and even though I grew up over the Atlantic ocean we must have watched the same hundreds, if not thousands, of horror films while we were growing up. So turning this tune into an industrial hip-hop dub horror film soundtrack came easy for us especially with Marius Costache at the Controls. The song is inspired by Roman Polanskis horror comedy, but also by the Bad Brains classic song from their cassette debut. Enjoy some twisted Trans-American duppy riddim who I used to chant to my 1 year old daughter as a lullaby!

I was lucky and my maternal grandmother was a rock! She really was a stubborn awake almost anarchist person born in the 30’s and living under Ceaucescu with a prison administrator/ warden, my grandfather Vlad Ion. Her name is a city name Constanta being the biggest city by the Black Sea. She was very proud and never took any bullshit from anyone. So I loved to record her stories. I had to put some of this duppy dub my first collaboration with Marius Costache from Studio148. We used drums from London’s Horseman, Mad Professor collaborator since 1981, electric bass from Mihai from Timisoara, Theremin from Leon from Cluj and santur from Marian Serban from Bucharest. This is one of my favorite songs from my second sold out CD with Wormhole World from Lancashire. Enjoy some creepy/ funny stories about life with tamed bears who cured Romanian and Dobrogean people in the 40’s and 50’s.

BBC Lancashire legend and On-U Sound champion Steve Barker played this song on his radio show. I couldn’t believe it and I still don’t. Its like being played by John Peel, even though this cult legend is Anti-Peel. Interior is inspired by Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil and mixes horror and gore with eroticism in the The Cure’s style pornography. It also feature what is probably my favorite instrument in a dub environment the Theremin. And what I love is that my wife Cristiana did a female vocals version on her EROS EP. Welcome to Transylvania ladies and gentlemen, scare or be scared!

Gideon Coe from BBC 6 played this at my boss John Robb of Louder Than War request. I was wow! I still am. This was my most well received tune from my debut album and career having circled dub & reggae/ dancehall niche readios all over the world. From Canada to San Francisco to NYC, to Brasil, from the UK to France, Germany and Italy & Romania this was my biggest miss. I produced no video for it and made sure it remains an undeground hit because I want life to be hard in Transylvania. No need for garlic and coffins! Time/ Timpul was originally a divorce ballad by Mircea Baniciu one of Romania’s folk superstars but I took it into creepy territory and reworked every melody. The original composer said it is no longer his song and wants no royalties. I call that a blessing not a curse! The amazing santur riff is by Marian Serban and Tim Whelan masterfully composed that wicked bassline.

I had to bring things back full circle. My last launched production is the Bela Lugosis Dead version! I was born in 1986 the year of Chernobyl and the Electronic revolution in Jamaica the year of the Sleng Teng probably the second most influential riddim in music history. As I consider myself a sound collage artist I had to work out a way with Petru of making my vision a reality. It worked! Beautifully I suspect because it also became the theme song to my PostPunk Dubby Pary show on Louder Than War Radio on Manchester. I altered the lyrics only a little.