Tag Archives: Adrian Sherwood

60. music + science lovers

Posted on by
Reply

“The 1987 album known Time Boom X De Devil Dead (yeah, it’s a mouthful, but why shouldn’t it be?) is one of the greatest three way musical collisions that ever happened, and further evidence that you just can’t trust the Music Biz when it comes to getting superlative noise from creators to appreciators. In fact, it may just be the whole reason for this list (the best stuff you’ve probably never heard). The music and science lovers in question here being i) Lee “Scratch” Perry (having recently split Jamaica for the UK), ii) the Dub Syndicate (absolute truth in advertising), and iii) Adrian Sherwood (mix magician extraordinaire) all taking the night train together, feeling no pain, even as the Cold War reality of the moment kept burning hotter and hotter, almost as if the only conceivable constructive action was to keep moving, keep grooving, keep smoking the ganja and cranking the echo, and spilling the mad truth in hopes it might someday one day, by whatever improbable means, finally find the sort of ears that need it, want it, maybe even deserve it. Time Boom X De Devil Dead. Seriously, seek it out — possibly the greatest album ever that hardly anyone’s heard.” (Philip Random)

Advertisement

185. stoned immaculate

Posted on by
Reply

 

Another argument in favour of the Dub Syndicate (the whole On-U Sound project in general) continuing to be one of the great overlooked items in recent cultural history. Seriously. In the case of Stoned Immaculate, that means you grab a sample of Jim Morrison waxing poetic about what it’s like to be way out there at the psychedelic edge, lay it over some suitably strong and mysterious dub and voila! It hits the cool zeitgeist of summertime 1991. A stupid war has ended and with it the so-called Winter of Hate, so maybe something new and beautiful is being born. The 90s did have that vibe … for a while anyway.

DubSyndicate-1991-StyleScott

279. enjoy the silence [the quad: final mix]

Posted on by
Reply

“In 1981 or thereabouts, if you told me that Depeche Mode would still be around come the 1990s, I would’ve laughed in your face. They were just pretty boys pushing buttons, and not even as well as other boys were pushing buttons. And yet there they still were nine years later, and not just surviving – actually relevant. Case in point Enjoy The Silence – The Quad: Final Mix which seamlessly blends four separate Silences into one  beautiful fifteen plus minute monster. Adrian Sherwood, David Harrow, Gareth Jones, Holger Hiller, Mimi Izumi Kobayashi and Tim Simenon were all involved but it’s the overall flow that matters. What did 1990 sound like, you may ask? Some of the silences were amazing.” (Philip Random)

DepecheMode-wordsUNnecessary

379. be my power station

Posted on by
Reply

Alternately known as St. Che or merely Che, this outfit was basically just Tackhead anyway, which is confusing, because Tackhead was also Fats Comet and/or Mark Stewart’s Maffia and/or Little Axe (though that came later) and/or Keith Leblanc working solo. He was the drummer, the other key three players being bassist Doug Wimbish, guitarist Skip MacDonald and producer, mixmaster extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood. The first three originally connected as the house band for Sugarhill Records but it took colliding with Mr. Sherwood to truly unleash the kind of outfit that defines zeitgeists. Big fat beats, funky grooves, charged samples all toward the kind of soundtrack that a proper apocalypse needs, and the 1980s were nothing if not a rolling apocalypse (if you had the right kind of eyes). As for Che, little is known beyond this single and then, a few years after the fact, an album that hardly anyone heard. Which is pretty much par for the whole Tackhead story. Essential but you’ve got to go looking for it.

Che-narcotic

015. The Final Countdown*

Posted on by
Reply

Installment #15 of The Final Countdown aired Saturday-July-7-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

The Final Countdown* is Randophonic’s longest and, if we’re doing it right, most relevant countdown yet – the end of result of a rather convoluted process that’s still evolving: the 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here. Whatever that means. What it means is over a year of radio if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?

TFC-015

Installment #15 of The Final Countdown* went like this.

1007. Regular Fries – Mars Hotel
1006. Audio Active – Electric Bombardment
1005. Love – between Clark + Hilldale
1004. Luther Wright + The Wrongs – goodbye blue skies
1003. Scissor Sisters – comfortably numb
1002. Bill Nelson – hope for the heartbeat
1001. Negativland – the perfect cut [piece of meat]
1000. Addrisi Bros – we’ve got to get it on again
999. John Cale – The Soul of Carmen Miranda
998. Bo Hansson – flight to the ford
997. Pavement – Stereo
996. Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso – Miserere alla storia
995. Dominic Frontiere – film caravan [Stunt Man]
994. The Bees – Angryman
993. Focus – Hamburger [birth + concerto]
992. Tarwater – all the ants left Paris
991. Yello – reverse lion + downtown samba
990. Tribal Drift – Ants
989. Nancy + Lee – you’ve lost that loving feeling

Randophonic airs pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and/or download options usually available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

 

447. false leader

Posted on by
Reply

“Gary Clail gets the credit here but there are all kinds of folks involved in this grim yet groovy few minutes from 1991, with On-U Sound at the heart of it all. I’d say the 1980s were more their time, when their fusion of dub, punk, politics, NOISE mattered most. It manifested in various bands, singers, poets, players, but it was pretty much always Adrian Sherwood working the final mix. With a track like False Leader pulling it all together, throwing down a gauntlet that the future’s still trying to figure out. And yes, they are still at it.” (Philip Random)