The opening of “You Only Live Twice” is one of the most famous John Barry ever wrote: violins dropping two octaves in a run that sounds Japanese but is pure Western scale. He wrote it for the fifth Bond film in 1967, Leslie Bricusse wrote the words, and Nancy Sinatra sang it at CTS Studios in London over a 60-piece orchestra. The melancholy French horn line underneath it was Barry’s too, though he borrowed that from a Tcherepnin piano concerto.
London-based The Lo-Tones turn that theme into dub reggae, shrinking the 60-piece score to a small session on brass and keys with the bass sitting heavy underneath. Behind it are Felix Howard, one of British pop’s most established songwriters, who co-wrote the Sugababes’ breakthrough “Overload” and has written for Amy Winehouse, Sia and Kylie Minogue before moving into A&R, now heading it up at Kassner Music, and Tim Hutton, a multi-instrumentalist who has played with the Prodigy, Groove Armada and Above & Beyond since he came up through the anarcho-punk bands The Mob and Zounds on Crass Records. Nick Manasseh mixes it, pulling instruments out until the sub-bass does most of the work: he built his first sound system in 1985 and cut “Seventh Seal”, widely called the first UK Steppers record, three years later. Lovelle, a south-east London singer trained at the Mick Jagger Centre and Sylvia Young, sings Sinatra’s old part low and close to the groove.
Manasseh also runs off a full dub version, dropping the vocal and letting the bass and echo carry the track on their own.