he moment comes early. 8 seconds into the track. A few skanking guitars, a stoned moan from unidentified backup vocalists, a sub bass thump, and a kick drum. Then it cuts off, and the deejay comes in, rhyming over a different track.

Of course, back in these days, a deejay meant a man who toasted, or improvised, over instrumental dub tracks. That was a common technique at the time in the reggae world. What was truly unconventional was that this deejay was rhyming over two completely different songs.

It’s the early seventies, and in Jamaica, Lee Perry has just pulled off the world’s most prophetic move – the beatmix. Of course, he was using two tape decks, and they aren’t quite synched up, but it’s close enough. It’s pretty clear when he cuts from one track to the other, but maybe he was just trying to make it more obvious so everyone would hear it and pick up on it. Or a banana from heaven told him to. Who knows what goes on in that man’s head? (Hint: Chris Whiteworst knows.)

The track dubs on. Perry was no stranger to reworking his tracks, cutting a popular vocal mix to sell in his record store, and then recording bizarre unclassifiable music over the same backing mix. In fact, if you listen to his work between 1971 and 1973 you can hear at least one example of every bit of creative sound processing that appeared in the thirty years that followed, except perhaps granular synthesis.

This track was recorded at least five years before I was born, but it still sounds innovative as I am listening to it right now. Every time that Perry cuts back and forth you can hear the authority of recorded sound being shattered. It’s the inaccuracy of the cutting that I love. Reggae is so much about rhythm, and it’s really unexpected to hear the tempo lose or gain a quarter note here and there. The ominous moaning continues, the snare drum dives into the spring reverb – and then those sounds are cut off, and we’re in a different song, a song with an organ playing a doubletime background skank, with a dryer snare, but the same deejay is rhyming over it – AND THEN WE’RE BACK IN THE FIRST TRACK AGAIN.

It doesn’t sound too amazing now. I know. Hell, these days you can automatically beatmix tracks on your Winamp media player. And Monolake’s software Live can make any piece of audio play back in time with any other piece of audio. I wonder if anyone at the time heard this track and was like, “oh my god, I never heard two songs played in the same ... uh… song … before.” What would I have done in that situation? My parents hadn’t even met when this song was being recorded.

DJ culture and reverb culture and remix culture wouldn’t emerge for a while after this. Probably Kool Herc never even heard this track, even though he did start out as a reggae DJ. He and Grandmaster Flash may not have been influenced by this track, but it still stands up as an amazing audio document.

It’s still amazing. I am listening to it now, and each time I hear it, I can’t tell when it’s gonna cut to the other track. I love the fact that the deejay takes these long breaks. He isn’t dropping rhymes in verses and singing choruses. It’s like he’s taking the long pauses so he can think of something to rhyme about, something about stealing cows, and going to jail. So he drops out, and it’s just the ominous moaning background voices and the snare and the bass and a little skank, and you’re listening to it, as it loops. It sounds almost as minimal as something from Basic Channel. This is the most basic of all channels, here. This is minimalism before you could set the sequencer to repeat. This is pure human dubby minimalism, and you’re listening to it loop – and then all of a sudden it’s something else.

This isn’t the best, the most experimental, the most important, the most atonal, or the most incomprehensible of Lee Perry’s tracks. But it’s a history lesson. The most important of all history lessons. Download your textbook. I expect your report on my desk Monday morning, 8 AM sharp.