I Am The Sky, Who Are You?

With a nod to C's comment about New Age Steppers on Thursday, I'd been planning a dub flavoured selection for Sunday anyway and I was consequently nudged towards Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound.

The selection is book-ended by fresh music from this year, both by artists named Andy. The first features the late, great Andy Fairley, who departed in 1999 but whose voice and words were liberally used across On-U Sound releases in the 1990s, not least the incredible System Vertigo album released under his own name in 1992. This is one of two new tracks featured in the latest volume of the Pay It All Back series. The selection closes with Horace Andy, thankfully very much still with us and sounding in incredible form. Midnight Rocker is a highlight of 2022 and companion album Midnight Scorchers, out in mid-September, promises to be the same.

 

Another voice inextricably linked with On-U Sound is Bim Sherman, who pops up on Side Two twice. The first is a classic 10" side from Singers & Players, reworking one of Bim's songs from 1975 to great effect. Later, he features with Dub Syndicate with an alternate vocal version of Forever More, renamed Money Dealers. The original version was on 1984 album Tunes From The Missing Channel. This alternate version was finally made available in 2017 on the compilation Displaced Masters, which I bought as part of the Ambience In Dub 1982-1985 CD boxset. 

 

Speaking of CD boxsets, in 2021 On-U Sound released Stepping Into A New Age 1980-2012, a similarly beautifully packaged collection of New Age Steppers' albums. Problems is a cover of the 1977 song by Horace Andy featured on their 1981 debut Action Battlefield. Ari Up deftly goes from English to German vocals and back again, before the dub half drops like a ton of bricks, demolishing the song then building it back up. 

 

With African Head Charge, I was sorely tempted to draw something from My Life In A Hole In The Ground, their incredible album from 1981. I've gone instead for Voodoo Of The Godsent, released three decades later, Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and Adrian Sherwood's partnership showing no signs of slowing down. 

 

Speaking of partnerships, Lee 'Scratch' Perry & Dub Syndicate were surely a match made in heaven. Time Boom x De Devil Dead remains one of my favourite On-U Sound releases and I've gone here for the (almost) title track, which also supplies the name for today's selection.

 

A bit of a cheat as it appeared on Real World Records (founded by Peter Gabriel) rather than On-U Sound, but I felt I couldn't have an Adrian Sherwood selection without including a song from one his solo albums. Hari Up Hari is song two on Sherwood's 2003 debut, Never Trust A Hippy, and features pioneer of Indian fusion music Hariharan Anantha Subramani. 

 

Little Annie, previously Annie Anxiety, found a spiritual - and literal - home with Adrian Sherwood. According to her On-U Sound biog on Bandcamp, Annie lived in a shed at the bottom of Adrian's garden! Watch The World Go Bye originally featured on 1992's Short And Sweet, her third album and first under the Little Annie moniker. Watch The World Go Bye In Dub appears on the reworked, remixed and resequenced USA-only album, Short, Sweet And Dread, which you can also find on Bandcamp.

 

Rounding out the On-U Sound team is Audio Active, a Japanese experimental dub fusion band, starting as a solo vehicle for singer/songwriter Masa Osada before expanding to a full band in 1991. Sadly no longer active, several of the band's albums were produced by Adrian Sherwood, this track with additional programming support from David Harrow, another mainstay of the On-U Sound collective in the 1990s and continuing to produce his own wonderful electronic dub sounds to this day.

 

I've split today's selection into two vinyl-friendly sides with a full Dubhed Selection to squeeze onto a virtual side of a C90, if you want the whole experience in one go.

 

Side One

1) Your Best Tune: Andy Fairley (2022)

2) Problems (Album Version By Adrian Sherwood) (Cover of Horace Andy): New Age Steppers (1981)

3) Badman Plan (Album Version By Adrian Sherwood): African Head Charge (2011)

4) De Devil Dead (Album Version By Lee 'Scratch' Perry & Adrian Sherwood): Lee 'Scratch' Perry & Dub Syndicate (1987)

5) Hari Up Hari: Adrian Sherwood ft. Hariharan (2003)

Side Two

1) Danger (10" Version By Adrian Sherwood): Singers & Players ft. Bim Sherman (1982)

2) Watch The World Go Bye In Dub (Album Version By David Harrow): Little Annie (1992)

3) Dub In An Abyss (Album Version By Audio Active & Adrian Sherwood): Audio Active ft. David Harrow (1995)

4) Money Dealers (Version By Adrian Sherwood): Dub Syndicate ft. Bim Sherman (1984)

5) Watch Over Them (Album Version By Adrian Sherwood): Horace Andy (2022)

1981: Action Battlefield: A2 

1982: Virgin/Danger EP: B1

1987: Time Boom x De Devil Dead: A4

1994: Short, Sweet And Dread: B2 

1994: Happy Happer: B3

2003: Never Trust A Hippy: A5

2011: Voodoo Of The Godsent: A3

2017: Displaced Masters: Unreleased Versions From The Vault: B4

2022: Midnight Rocker: B5

2022: Pay It All Back Vol. 8: A1

Side One (22:16)

Side Two (22:54)

Full Dubhed Selection (45:06)