From Martin Sent Wed, Oct 15th 1997, 16:47
From Martin Sent Wed, Oct 15th 1997, 16:47
In reply to: >>>> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 19:41:58 -0700 From: Miles Egan <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: (idm) Re: D'nB vs. African Head Charge I haven't heard enough Stewart to comment, but, as far as I'm concerned, Adrian Sherwood is the great satan of muso-dub perversion. Nobody matches his talent for stripping such an insanely creative and unpredictable music of all humor and character and replacing it with bland anglo studio sheen. A few spins of prime Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo, or King Tubby will cure the discerning listener. AHC had a brilliant sense of the implications of the original dub innovations, but lost the thread after about four essential albums. <<<< whoa miles, got to take exception on this one. sherwood's reggae/dub comes from a later period than any of the above's (perry, pablo, tubby) golden era's at a time when the technology being used on dub records fundamentally made them sound less warm/human more mechanical. i don't think you can single sherwood out for this criticism, nearly all dub produced from the late 70's on sounds this way. the early sherwood productions for dub syndicate, creation rebel, new age steppers... , including those first 4 wonderful AHC records that you like so much, are total sheen free zones. what really made sherwood special was the boundary crossing dub productions he executed on other genres. sugarhill funk, jazz, punk, world, noise and soul were were blended echo'd and scuzzed into new forms. if you haven't heard any mark stewart try "as the veneer of democracy starts to fade" i'd be interested to hear how you reconcile the sound on that disc with the phrase "bland anglo studio sheen". i'll admit that most of the of the on-u output from about '92/3 onwards has gotten overtly glossy, but the man's legacy output is worth far more. a total dismissal is like judging lee perry on "technomajikal" or something. for my final 2 pennies about the only decent post - black ark perry output has been w/ sherwood/dub syndicate rex, particularly "time boom x de devil dead" which just exudes both humour and character, and just about gives you a final glimpse of that magical swampy miasma of sound that perry used to regularly throw out of the black ark by the bucketload. martin np - big loada, squarepusher nl - levitate, the fall (still, "aaaaahhhh - i'm the mummy")