Black Ark is a monumental photographic and archival record of Lee "Scratch" Perry's Kingston studio — a building that functioned simultaneously as recording space, living artwork, and cosmological system, now documented before its permanent dispersal.
About This Book
Black Ark Studios was never just a recording facility. From 1973, Perry transformed the Kingston premises into a continuously evolving environment — murals, assemblages of found objects, records, instruments, newspaper clippings, and appropriated books accreting into rhizomatic layers inseparable from the building itself. As a seminal pioneer of dub, Perry's sonic approach to sampling, looping, and remixing had a direct visual counterpart in this space. This book, compiled from a detailed inventory taken in Spring 2021 shortly before the premises were sold, brings together new studio photography, archival stills, and documentary footage alongside extended captions by Perry's biographer. It is at once an act of preservation, a work of archeomusicology, and a meditation on the idea of the "house" as spiritual yard within the African diaspora tradition.
Key Features
- 600 pages of new studio photography, archival photographs, and documentary stills juxtaposed across chronologies
- Extended captions by Perry's biographer providing archeomusicological and biographical context
- Conceived in collaboration with Lee "Scratch" Perry during the book's early stages
- Published by Edition Patrick Frey, 2021
What You'll Discover
- How Perry's visual practice — layered murals, found-object assemblages, and appropriated print media — operated as a physical embodiment of dub's remixing logic
- The Black Ark as a "spiritual yard" examined through the lens of African diaspora culture and Rastafarian cosmology
- Archeomusicological readings of the studio space, tracing how built environment, biography, and sonic experimentation became indistinguishable
- The book's own structure as a formal argument: its collage-based design and layered materials mirror the rhythm and accumulation of Perry's creative method
About the Author
Lee "Scratch" Perry (1936–2021) was a Jamaican musical and visual artist who spent his later years based in Switzerland. A foundational figure in the development of dub — the electronic reggae subgenre built on sampling, looping, reverb, and remix — Perry's Black Ark Studios became one of the genre's defining creative sites, as well as the primary canvas for his parallel practice as a visual artist.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 600
- Dimensions: 21 × 28 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783907236666
- Publisher: Edition Patrick Frey
- Publication Date: 2021
Perfect For: Music historians, visual culture researchers, collectors interested in the intersection of sound and space, and readers drawn to the archival documentation of irreplaceable creative environments.