All things considered, Pinchers wasn’t the biggest name in dancehall, but he was a notable one. Helmed by producer/engineer King Jammy, 1987’s Agony helped bridge the gap between the live-band deejay era and the emerging world of digital dancehall. The sound was leaner, tougher and cheaper, but sweeter and more melodic, too, filled with sing-song choruses and high, birdlike vocal flutters—a naive, almost punky take on lovers rock. Not that Pinchers was a choirboy: If you don’t catch his drift when he says his woman is like a magnet to steel (“Magnet to Steal”), consider the anatomical implications of “Si Down Pon It”, wherein love is compared to a hard, sturdy chair. Then there’s “Agony”, a riff on the Sleng Teng riddim whose quasi-Arabic vocal runs helped forecast the gruff, hypnotic sound of ragga.