Scientist

Scientist, real name Hopeton Overton Brown, is a Jamaican recording engineer and producer who rose to fame in the 1980s mixing dub music. He was a protégé of King Tubby, working alongside other figures who had helped pioneer dub in the 1970s. He came up as an apprentice at King Tubby's Kingston studio in the late 1970s, where "Anyone who can do that must be a Scientist," said King Tubby – and the name stuck.

Through the early 1980s he moved from disciple to master in his own right, becoming the principal engineer for Channel One, giving him the chance to work on a 16-track mixing desk rather than the four tracks at Tubby's. That era produced the run of albums he's still best known for, built around tracks recorded at Channel One and played by The Roots Radics Band, mixed by Scientist at King Tubby's studio, including Scientist Meets the Space Invaders, Scientist in the Kingdom of Dub and his 1981 set Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires, which he's bringing to UK stages on this tour. That album's influence has carried well beyond reggae circles too: five of its songs were used as playlist tracks on the K-Jah radio station in the 2001 video game Grand Theft Auto 3.

Expect a live show built around deep sub-bass, cavernous echo and sharp, surgical edits rather than a standard DJ set. He takes tracks apart and rebuilds them from their components, dressing them in galactic echoes, planet-smashing bass and sharp drum hits that can wake both spirits and dance floors. After decades sculpting dub at the mixing desk, he's touring that landmark vampire-themed album in full alongside other material across Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Leamington Spa, Nottingham and London this February.