Lifetones – For A Reason

A one-time musical anomaly created from the ashes of influential UK post-punk trio This Heat, Lifetone’s For A Reason brings together the political angst and energy of This Heat’s Charles Bullen with the dub and reggae rhythms of drummer Julius Samuel aka Dub Judah. The sessions were recorded in an abandoned cold storage room in Brixton, a district in South London where dub soundsystems, punk rock, African music, and pirate radio all came together, which undoubtedly informed the sound of the record. The music is both futuristic and definitively of its time as the lyrics deal with the Cold War climate of fear, imperialism, and death consciousness. The title track include lines like “We’ll do everything for a reason / We’ll plant every seed for a reason / We know that we reap what we sow.” The record quickly fell into obscurity after it was released in 1983, partially due to poor promotion from the record company, but has since gained a devout following from record collectors and was finally reissued in 2016 by Light in the Attic. If you love this record like we do, we recommend diving deeper into This Heat and Dub Judah’s catalog for more post-punk & dub experimentations.

– Phil Cho

Recommended – Full listen