ADRIAN SHERWOOD / “Majestic 12”

Adrian Sherwood has been around at least since I first got interested in dub music and that was twenty years ago. Back then, I knew his name from reading the fine print on LPs by strange-looking and equally strange-sounding quasi-reggae outfits like The Dub Syndicate, New Age Steppers and African Head Charge. I used to like those records as much for their obscurity and packaging as for their sound. Before the now-defunct Tower Records opened in the French Quarter, there was only one place in New Orleans that carried Adrian Sherwood's On-U label, and it was uptown. Way the hell uptown. Besides that, it was more of a head shop than a record store.
 
As for the LPs themselves, I haven't laid eyes on them for years, but the way I remember it, the packaging was almost always black-and-white – that was unusual in and of itself. The cover art might be an intricate drawing (of what, who knows) or an intimate photo (of whom, who knows), but it was always the kind of thing you could look at all the way back home to the Lower Nine, and even though the bus ride was more than an hour long, by the time you got home, the cover still looked strange and cool.

The music was every bit the match of the LP jackets. Back in the mid-Eighties, the On-U sound was a combination of dubbed-out reggae and ragged, angular electronica (and keep in mind that this was years before anyone had dreamed up the term). Many of the On-U recordings are more accurately described as adventures than as songs: bass and snare pounding in slow-motion combat, sudden squeaks or rattling noises, intermittent feedback and echo, hi-hats and guitars panning back and forth between speakers...it was music made for getting high, I suppose. But I never was one to indulge, so I'd sometimes end up either over-stimulated, bored or (strangely enough) both. But right when I'd be wondering to myself why I even bothered, a proper reggae or dub piece would start up and I'd be lifted away to music heaven. There I was, getting high after all.

By the time I came across Adrian’s 2003 release NTAH (which stands for ‘Never Trust A Hippy’…and no, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean), everything had changed. Thanks to the ever-increasing portability of recorded sound, the various styles and methodologies of the world’s musical cultures seem to have closed in around me, around all of us. All it takes is broadband and a little initiative and it’s as if anyone can listen to anything from anywhere at any time. There are hip-hop songs in Farsi, straight-up blues songs in Swahili and there’s really good jazz coming out of Poland. Two Saturday’s ago, I did a double-take as I jogged past an old lady wearing an iPod Shuffle. (All the way home, I wondered: what was she listening to?) It’s getting hard to be surprised by anything anymore.
 
It occurs to me too that, Adrian Sherwood’s On-U, if it was just getting started today, might be written off as cliché. In some circles, it’s gotten to the point where weird sound collages are more the norm than the exception. Still, I took a chance on Adrian Sherwood's album. I'll admit it was mostly due to a nostalgic longing for the days of old - I can't honestly say I expected it to be good. Truthfully, if it wasn't on sale, I probably would've passed. I was intrigued though by an online writeup I'd seen which happened to mention that NTAH marked the first time Sherwood had released an album under his own name. After twenty-some years in the business? Interesting.

Is the album any good? The easy answer is yes. And if the iTunes 'Play Count' feature is a reliable indicator, then it's very good - I listen to my favorite songs from NTAH a lot more than I would've thought. It's strange though. There's music that impresses me deeply without my actually enjoying it: early-period Louis Armstrong or late-period Trane, to give two examples from the world of jazz. Sherwood's new music is the exact inversion: I enjoy it deeply (and apparently, often) but I'm not all that impressed by it.

Right off the bat, I can't think of any music that sounds like Sherwood's, but I feel like everybody these days is making records like "No Dog Jazz" or "Processed World." (If I'm right about that, please point me in a useful direction - I could use more of this stuff.) "Dead Man Smoking"—with the strange chanting and offbeat drum bursts—is a bit more original-sounding, but given how bizarre Sherwood's sound collages used to sound, I still feel like he could do this stuff in his sleep. And given the unyielding languor of the acoustic guitars in "Majestic 12," maybe he did. The title of the record has to be inspired by Marley’s famous ‘Kingston 12,’ but that’s about the only reggae connection I can come up with. I don’t know what language the vocals are in, but I like what both cats have to say. (Although I get the feeling they don’t know they’re on the same record.) I don’t know what instrument that is blowing on the refrains (melodica? some kind of giant flute?), but I like that too.

In the case of a lot of the music I listen to, I can recite its origins chapter-and-verse. I can tell you model numbers of the drum machines used or names of the musicians who happened to miss that day’s recording session. In other words, I’m a wellspring of all sorts of arcane (and mostly useless) musical information. But for me, Adrian’s NTAH remains mysterious no matter how many times I listen to it. It’s words and sounds that I can’t say anything definitive about other than, “I like it a lot.” I have a sneaking suspicion that would suit Mr. Sherwood just fine.

—Mtume ya Salaam

For more information about Adrian Sherwood and his On-U Sounds collective, check out this very long and very informative interview with the man himself (as well as several of his cohort).


          Back door, back door!          

That’s what we used to shout at the bus driver when we were trying to get off and he forgot to hit the switch to open the back door. It was not a plea or even a request. It was an insistent demand: man, hit the switch, let me off this thing. (I’m sure y'all can see where I’m going with this anecdote.)

Mtume, you’re on your own with this one. If I were being generous, I would say that this is music to annoy people who love music! If you want to conversate about this stuff, it's totally on you cause I ain't listening. (In fact I have a Head Charge CD or two I could send you, which is to say this paticular flavor of dub Kool-Aid ain't to my liking.)

Kalamu is officially off the bus!

—Kalamu ya Salaam



          I'll take 'em!         

Baba, as per those African Head Charge CDs: I'll take 'em! You know the address. 

—Mtume ya Salaam

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 1:13 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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