The On-U Sound Appreciation Thread

Woebot

Well-known member
<img alt="singers.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/dissensus/singers.jpg" width="500" height="500" border="0" />

Unsure whether to append this here:

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=403

or here

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=311

and have rooted instead for starting a new thread!!!

Picked this up for a fiver from a mans carboot on Stoke Newington High Street on Sunday. What a great record! Its even better than this their classic:

<img alt="singers2.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/dissensus/singers2.jpg" width="500" height="500" border="0" />

My copy on the 99 records imprint fellow train-spotting geeks!

Why is it such a great record? I guess its perfectly poised between satisfying ones roots urges, the need for those creamy basso croons (Bim Sherman growing in my estimation of him as I get a bit older/have the edges knocked off me by the pickney dem and the love of a real woman...you know it, seen!), the need for a likkle bubbling patois MC-ing, with those little touches of avant-desperation/white-bliss the pump and piston abstraction of some of the riddims, some of the melancholic_carnival_high_synth touches (as on Lighthouse/Dreamworld). Aaah its just a gourgeous jamboree of a long-playing elpee.

And Sherwood got such a bashing by old Penny Reel on the Blood and Fire forum didnt he?
 

Tim H

Member
I spent a chunk of the weekend listening to African Head Charge - the 'Off The Beaten Track' LP.

The track 'Language and Mentality' is the one with spoken-word samples from Einstein drifting in and out, but the highlight is 'Throw It Away' where Sherwood goes to town with the dub effects. The 'hook', as much as there is one, is a sample of someone shouting 'wa-ha-ha-hey', or something similar. An amazing record.

Tim
 

Backjob

Well-known member
Wow, I'd always assumed that the presence of Gary Clail must equal automatic suckage. But you say this is not the case, eh?
 

mms

sometimes
WOEBOT said:
And Sherwood got such a bashing by old Penny Reel on the Blood and Fire forum didnt he?



can you explane please?
why would sherwood take a bashing ?
he's ace, he's a carrier and a believer.
 
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carlos

manos de piedra
any fans of Annie Anxiety's "Soul Posession"...? i finally tracked down a beautiful copy of this LP when i was in san francisco two years ago- i had owned this LP in the 80s but traded it along the way for some reason. anyway- i love Sherwood's work on this... some amazing mixes and sounds
 

francesco

Minerva Estassi
"Fade Away" covered by Ari of Slits on the first New Age Stepper lp is on my top ten tracks ever. I rate it even more beautiful than the Junior Bayles original. I recently picked the CD of "Starship Africa" by Creation Rebel and wanted info if the others Creation's lp are as good as. Please help!

Let's not forget two another greatest lp ever in every genre: Mark Stewart "learning to cope with cowardice" or Perry "From the secret laboratory"

On U Sound, greatest non reissue reggae label outside Jamaica. They had a unique sound, post punk influenced but rooted to roots and dub tradition. Fantastici.


ciao da francesco
 

john eden

male pale and stale
On-u - the purists hate 'em for not being authentic enough, which is the whole point, yes?

In any case the "reggae archive" CD has some top tunes on and the £1.49 "Pay it all back"comp was the doorway for many punk and industrial fans into dub / reggae / whatever.

Early Tackhead is sheer genius as is the first Clail LP.

Amazing gigs - tackhead soundsystem, On-U showcases with everyone doing a turn and Melle Mel showing up for the encore...

Penny Reel and Sherwood had business-related falling out. From what I've heard, my sympathies lie with the former. I'm not saying any more than that though.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
francesco said:
Perry "From the secret laboratory"

I've always rated "Time Boom De Devil Dead" above "Secret Laboratory"

It'd be so easy to dismiss TBDDD, Perry gets props in the main because of the Black Ark riddims, and here they weren't his, they were Sherwoods (incidentally many of the same backing tracks appear on the Singers and Players LP as do on TBDDD. Furthermore it was Perrys vocals which ruined Roast Fish and Cornbread.

However I reckon it was at around this time that he perfected his babblespeak, he was probably pushing the poetic envelope futher at this point than Ra ever did, the interviews he gave at this time were dizzyingly brilliant, collisions of Jes-grew voodoo imagery/conspiracy theory/child-like poetic punnery. He was really alight with brilliance. Also his voice lost its bark with age and seemed to prance all over the shop, swinging, gloriously unfettered. You could get completely lost in it...

And this was quite a few years before his mass discovery wasn't it?
 
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mms

sometimes
WOEBOT said:
I've always rated "Time Boom De Devil Dead" above "Secret Laboratory"

It'd be so easy to dismiss TBDDD, Perry gets props in the main because of the Black Ark riddims, and here they weren't his, they were Sherwoods (incidentally many of the same backing tracks appear on the Singers and Players LP as do on TBDDD. Furthermore it was Perrys vocals which ruined Roast Fish and Cornbread.

However I reckon it was at around this time that he perfected his babblespeak, he was probably pushing the poetic envelope futher at this point than Ra ever did, the interviews he gave at this time were dizzyingly brilliant, collisions of Jes-grew voodoo imagery/conspiracy theory/child-like poetic punnery. He was really alight with brilliance. Also his voice lost its bark with age and seemed to prance all over the shop, swinging, gloriously unfettered. You could get completely lost in it...

And this was quite a few years before his mass discovery wasn't it?


that coming from the jungle tune is one of his best ever on this lp.
why are the pressings always so bad though?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
WOEBOT said:
And this was quite a few years before his mass discovery wasn't it?

Yeah, it's a great album, that one. Not heard the Laborotory one. I guess the mass discovery of LSP revved up with the "Grand Royal" special, the re-release of the Congos LP on Blood & Fire and then the Arkology set? Mid 90s onwards?

When did 'Time Boom' come out?

oooh 1987!
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
Sherwood was a bit like the British Laswell; his music was more interesting in theory than it was in practice. Exceptions: the unassailable Mark Stewart/Maffia '80s trilogy, the Clail Tackhead Tape Time comp, "Strike!" by the Enemy Within (Scargill-sampling '84 Xmas single), the aforementioned Time Boom X, LeBlanc's Major Malfuction, "Be My Power Station" by Che ("bodies lay stretched out") and "Stormy Weather" by Fats Comet.
 

sufi

lala
love that War of Words cover
reminds me of kimathi
Kimathi.gif
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
On-U = arguably the greatest British record label of any genre, ever

Tackhead = the best live experience on the planet

On-U is the crossover point between dub, industrial and hip-hop, and acid house.

On-U were the future and largely still are.



Sometime I'm going to do the On-U retrospective mix I promised Professor of Pop, Dr Stuart Borthwick.



"SAIGON! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
 

mms

sometimes
Rachel Verinder said:
Sherwood was a bit like the British Laswell; his music was more interesting in theory than it was in practice. Exceptions: the unassailable Mark Stewart/Maffia '80s trilogy, the Clail Tackhead Tape Time comp, "Strike!" by the Enemy Within (Scargill-sampling '84 Xmas single), the aforementioned Time Boom X, LeBlanc's Major Malfuction, "Be My Power Station" by Che ("bodies lay stretched out") and "Stormy Weather" by Fats Comet.


yeah stormy weather is great. not sure if major malfunction holds it's own nowdays, i think in genre terms the creation rebel records more than hold their own tho as do the sherwood produced fari chapters in dub, they're as good as anything the best of that genre has produced
 
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