Featuring Youth (Martin Glover), Gaudi, the late Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Kermit Leveridge (Black Grape), Don Letts, Dan Morrell and Planetman, the record blends dub, ambient textures, spoken word and ritual chant into a meditation on trees as cultural, spiritual and ecological anchors. The album's 'Vision Tree' artwork was originally created by Jamie Reid in the 1990s and revisited for this project, one of his final creative works. Courtesy of the Jamie Reid Estate and John Marchant Gallery, the image anchors the project in a lineage of British countercultural art, extending CHANT's environmental ethos into visual form. CHANT was formed by environmentalist Dan Morrell and producer Youth as a creative extension of Morrell's long-standing tree-planting initiatives. Released via new eco-label Balance Recordings, a proportion of funds from 'Relics of Tree Worship (In Dub)' will support tree-planting initiatives, including projects located at the Bob Marley Mausoleum in Nine Mile, Jamaica - linking recorded sound directly to living landscape and reggae's spiritual homeland. As a dub record, 'Relics of Tree Worship (In Dub)' uses repetition, low-frequency depth and space as a form of meditation. Youth and Gaudi's production balances analogue warmth with expansive sound design, while contributions across the album bring history, myth and contemporary environmental urgency into dialogue. The project also marks one of the final creative appearances of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, whose legacy of sonic experimentation and spiritual subversion resonates throughout.
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