Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music

ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION formed in the mid-nineties, the product of a government-sponsored scheme designed to teach young Asian men music technology, two teachers, their pupil and a local scenester inspired to come together and make music long after everyone else had gone home. Given a support slot in 1997 by Primal Scream, they blew their patrons offstage and inspired Bobby Gillespie to hail them as the best band in the world. Fiercely political, they fronted the prolonged but successful Free Satpal Ram campaign, even releasing a single to raise awareness of the man wrongfully imprisoned for murder because of the colour of his skin. Proactive in every respect, ADF are Britain's cross-cultural, positivist answer to Rage Against The Machine and just about the only good thing to emerge from 18 years of Tory government. Community Music is their third and best album, cementing them not just as one of the most important bands in Britain, but as one of the best.