Quality: M-

The eleventh release by Moll-Selekta offers the ultimate roots-reggae-album in Mike Brooks‘ long lasting facetful career. „The Earth Is The Fullness“ collects many previously on CD/LP unreleased singles and portays at the same time how reggae was changing both musically and in the social context of the 70‘s and 80‘s. The album contains some of his best and most important songs, amongst them the title track recorded 1972 in the early of the Black Ark studio and mixed by Lee Perry.Mike Brooks never craved for the limelight. He'd rather let other artists go first and helped with their careers. Staying in the background mostly, Mike Brooks never was a household name in reggae history, though his falsetto is one of Jamaica's best, he only sang on a handful of records in 30 years. As a producer, he was quite prolific though: between 1974 and 1977 he worked with the famous session group The Revolutionaries. At Jojo Hookim's Channel One studio, he produced The Mighty Diamonds' successful song "Shame And Pride". The artists he recorded at Joe Gibbs' studio, or at Treasure Isle, include Bim Sherman, Blacka Morwell, Earl "Chinna" Smith, The Soul Syndicate, Hortense Ellis, Pat Kelly, Bobby Melody and Gladstone Anderson.Born 1953 in Westmoreland, Jamaica, Brooks founded the Teems-label with Jah Lloyd in 1969. Their friendship lasted until Lloyd passed away in 1999. Its first release, Jah Lloyd‘s "Soldier Round The Corner" (1970), still remains a classic. Since then Brooks, who is not just a gifted singer but a master of all styles from Roots to R&B, handled everything on his own. By 1991, he felt his songs deserved a wider audience and moved to London. While many touring Reggae artists stopped off at his house, Brooks himself spent most of the time in the studio, working on his songs with Glen Brown and B.B. Seaton. He launched the career of successful R&B-singer Wayne Marshall, and joined the British Artists Famile Appeal to co-release the charity single "Let's Make Africa Green Again".Most of the tracks of „The Earth Is The Fullness“ were recorded in the legendary Channel One studio. The album contains a wealth of conscious rasta tunes and poetically subtle social comment, opening with the powerful “Jah Is My Light“ with Errol „Flabba“ Holt and Mike Brooks at the controls. Amongst its other highlights two other songs deserve a special mention: The two long versions „Who Have Eyes To See“, produced by Prince Far I, the famous „voice of thunder“-DJ and the Phil Pratt-produced „No Brother Man“. The circling loop of this rhythm has a meditative quality which seeps into the senses, perhaps the quintessence of all reggae songs. It symbolises what good reggae music is all about – no beginning and no end, a continuous flow, the rhythm and pulse of life.„The Earth Is The Fullness“ is the second release by Mike Brooks on Moll-Selekta, following the predecessor Mike Brooks And Friends: Just The Vibes 1976 – 1983 of 2000. We hope that it will finally lead to the long overdue breakthrough of this great artist.