Subatomic Sound System Marks 50 Years of Super Ape With Multimedia Tour

Subatomic Sound System, the NYC-based dub and bass collective anchored by longtime collaborator Screechy Dan, announced a pair of major programming moves tied to Lee "Scratch" Perry's catalog, headlined by a limited run of multimedia performances celebrating the 50th anniversary of Perry's 1976 dub landmark Super Ape.

The project, titled "Super Ape Returns to Conquer," frames the anniversary as an immersive audiovisual event rather than a conventional concert, positioning each engagement as a limited, site-specific experience. Prior 2026 stops included San Francisco, with additional US engagements announced across New York, Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana through the March-April touring window.

The April 4 announcement also confirmed Subatomic Sound System's dub takeover at Okeechobee Festival, where the collective assembled one of the more remarkable lineups in recent festival dub programming: Mykal Rose, Scientist, Sister Nancy, and Papa Michigan sharing a bill under the Subatomic umbrella. The Okeechobee slot, which carried a March 19 date, brought dub-centric programming to a large cross-genre festival audience that might otherwise never encounter a mixing board built on Black Ark principles.

The personnel alone signals how seriously Subatomic Sound System is treating the Super Ape milestone. Scientist engineered some of the defining records of the classic dub era; Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam" has been reintroduced to multiple generations through its sample life alone; Mykal Rose fronted Black Uhuru through its most critically celebrated years; Papa Michigan helped shape the DJ deejay style of the late 1970s alongside General Smiley. Putting all four on the same dub slate is an intergenerational statement.

Super Ape itself, recorded at Perry's Black Ark studio, stands as one of the most sonically adventurous records in the dub canon, packed with the manipulated textures and studio-as-instrument experimentation that made the Black Ark sessions legendary. Fifty years on, a multimedia performance treatment built around that material gives younger festivalgoers a genuine entry point into what made that record matter while giving longtime dub heads something to measure the presentation against.

New live videos featuring Subatomic Sound System and Screechy Dan from prior festival appearances are available through the collective's site, which also serves as the central hub for ticketing and updates on remaining US dates.