2024 In Dub

The list making has started. Some of my blogging compadres have already pressed the Best Of 2024 button. At some point before Christmas I will post an end of year review and list. In the meantime, here's some of 2024's highest quality dubwise sounds wrapped up in an hourlong mix- there's much more that could have fitted into this mix too but in the end I wanted to keep it to under sixty minutes. Repetitive, bass heavy, echo- laden and spacious sounds for Sunday. 

2024 In Dub

• Coyote: Living In Heaven
• BTCOP: Sabre 540 (Rude Audio Remix)
• Five Green Moons: Garbage Van Exhaust
• Uj Pa Gaz: Roxy (Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown)
• David Harrow and Little Annie: End Of Times (Rude Audio's Immutable Remix)
• Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow: Revolvalution (Dan Wainwright and Rude Audio VIP Remix)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: In Minus Shadows
• The Woodentops: Dream On (Rolo's Dub)
• Richard Norris: Fever Dub
• Coyote: OMG

In early December Coyote released a dub 12", two huge dub tracks,Living In Heaven and OMG,  that are in their own description 'light as a feather- heavy as lead'. 

Living in Heaven sounds like it be from side six of Sandinista!, a massive compliment in this household- it also has a touch of the Sabres Of Paradise Ysaebud single. Rattling bassline, echo and vocal sample. Coyote add some strings. Lovely deep stuff

Rude Audio's remix of BTCOP's Sabres 540 came out on Tici Taci in February, a remix that Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff thinks his among his best work. He's right. 

Five Green Moons is Justin Robertson's latest venture, a post- punk/ pagan dub excursion, an eleven track album that continues to reveal new depths with each play. Justin appears later on too, with a track from the EP he released on the excellent Pamela label in April, four tracks all to some extent infused with dub. 

Uj Pa Gaz is from Tirana, Albania, a Tici Taci recording artist, producer and DJ. Roxy came out in late July and appears here in Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown remix , heavy duty dub action from Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray. There is a very beguiling Middle Eastern melody line that plays out from the start, tumbling percussion, rimshots, delay and the deep hit of dub bass.

David Harrow has turned sixty this year and has celebrated with a release every month, a treasure trove of music emanating from his LA studio. His EP with On U legend Little Annie, the New York post- punk/ dub poet, had the original version of End Of Times, an instrumental, an acapella, and six remixes, two by Rude Audio- the Immutable and Protean Remixes. The Immutable is the dubbier of the two, a dubbed out rhythm underpinning Little Annie's poetry, 'this is not a happy hour'.

And Rude Audio turn up again, their third appearance here, now with the assistance of the wonderful Dan Wainwright. They took a track recorded by two former Andrew Weatherall cohorts- David Harrow and Hugo Nicolson and spun out into psychedelic dub complete with a brain melting ukulele solo. There are Sabres Of Paradise sounds scattered throughout it.

The Woodentops released a new album in April this year, Fruits From The Deep, a deep and rewarding trip under the sea. Dream On was one of the highlights, remixed in dub style by main Woodentop Rolo McGinty. Dream On (Rolo's Dub) starts and ends with an airplane taking off. Flying off to somewhere warm seems like a dream right now. 

Richard Norris' Bandcamp subscription service rewards on a monthly basis, a project that started with his Music For Healing ambient project but has blossomed into other areas, not least his Oracle Sound series of albums. Oracle Sound is (currently) three albums of superb, home grown dub. Fever Dub is from 2024's Oracle Sound Volume Three. 

V.A. Saturday

In 1985 the first volume of Pay It All Back was released by On U Sound, a compilation that turned into a series that serve as budget priced primers and round ups of On U sounds as well as outlets for unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. Pay It All Back Volume 8 came out in 2022, another edition of Adrian Sherwood's singular vision of dub, reggae, electro/ industrial with umpteen legendary artists across the series. This is a trio of tracks as a selection, a mere scratching of the surface. 

From 1988's Volume 2, this is Dub Syndicate, a studio sample- fest with pots and pans percussion, electric drills, radio announcements and between station static, guitars and with the mighty Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Train To Doomsville

From Volume 4 in 1993, Little Annie- horns, bass and Annie's so distinctive New York voice. 

Bless Those

Finally, from 2022's Volume 8, Tackhead and LSK, pummelling electro- dub from Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald and the late Keith Leblanc with Leigh Steven Kenny on vox. 

Rulers And Foolers

End Of Times

David Harrow has been featured at these pages many times before, a slew of tracks and releases taking in modular synth ambience, dub, acid and music from his time in the ON U Sound collective, recordings with Andrew Weatherall and previous to that with his album with Anne Clarke. His back catalogue is rich and varied. David has been a resident of Los Angeles since the early years of the 00s. This year David turns 60 and is celebrating with monthly releases. Last week he put out a nine track with Little Annie, titled End Of Times, and it already sounds like a 2024 highlight.

Little Annie (aka Annie Anxiety) is an American artist- singer, poet, writer, actor- and has a similarly rich musical background, including recordings with Adrian Sherwood's On U Sound, with Crass, three solo albums and appearances with Nurse With Wound, Finitribe, The Wolfgang Press, Swans, Kid Congo Powers and Coil among many. She hasn't made much music since 2011, so End Of Times with David marks a real return.

End Of Times is tense, throbbing electronic dub with Annie's spoken word/ poetry pointing fingers and pointing realities, taking down notes and asking questions. It's a strongly worded, poetic and vehement response to the world of 2024, kicking off with the lines, 'This is the sound of one hand slapping/ This is the edge of the cliff we're nearing' and adding a little later, 'This is a typeface of a mass nervous breakdown'. 

Annie's conclusion, 'We've all lost our fucking minds', followed by the realisation we might not be at the bottom of the barrel yet- 'How low can we go?' 

There is more, much more, memorable lines, expertly delivered in a low drawl, 'This is the death knell of critical thinking/ This is tinnitus from the Tower of Babel/ This is your misery rendered a hashtag/ This is the sun burning your crops'. 'This', Annie concludes, 'is not the happy hour'.

There are six remixes including two from South London dub- techno kings Rude Audio, both rattling with percussion and chugging drums and acres of echo. The Protean Remix romps by over eight and a half minutes, gathering pace and tempo, with mini explosions going off in the background behind Annie. The Immutable Remix is slightly shorter but no less intense, plenty of dub business going on. There are three other remixes, all sending Annie and David off in different dub influenced directions, from Martini Bros, Misled Convoys and Ono- Sendai. To wrap things up there is an instrumental version and an acapella (which could well find itself popping up all over the place). 

Versions for every occasion. Listen to and buy the whole EP at Bandcamp. 

In 1992 David and Annie worked together at On U, recording I Think Of You, a co- write with Doug Wimbish with Adrian Sherwood at the controls, a superb piece of sultry early 90s sci fi dub.

Forty Minutes Of Adrian Sherwood

Adrian Sherwood's career in music dates back more than four decades. You can dip into it at point since he started producing, mixing and making records in the early 80s and not be disappointed- there is no weak spot, no off period, no loss of quality; everything he touches is worth hearing and much of it is music of the very highest calibre. Various people have spoken about watching him in the studio, using the mixing desk as an instrument, throwing sound around the channels, pushing faders up and down, his use of echo and space and reverb creating music from somewhere else, inspired by Jamaican dub but identifiably British too. Through his label On U Sound he has released hundreds of records, Sherwood's golden touch for sound, space and rhythm all over many of them, a man with a sound that is always moving forward, always modern. As with The Fall a few Sundays ago, I could sit down a do another two or three Sherwood mixes without any bother at all- what is in this mix is just a selection of Sherwood recordings, productions and remixes. 

Forty Minutes Of Adrian Sherwood

• Whirlpool Dub
• Nocturne (Adrian Sherwood Remix)
• Acid Tabla (Adrian Sherwood Remix)
• I'm A Winner
• Dub For The Spirits
• Haunting Ground Dub
• Ju- 87
• Long As I Can See The Light (Adrian Sherwood's Dub Lightning)
• Bless Those
• The Way Of The World

Whirlpool Dub is from this year's Reset In Dub, Adrian's reworking in dub style of the entire Reset album, released by Sonic Boom and Panda Bear in 2021. It is one of this year's best albums. The vinyl arrived this week, a December dub treat. 

Mark Lanegan has never sounded darker or more doomy than in Adrian's hands (and that's saying something. Mark made a career out of dark and doomy). This remix came out in 2017 on a Mark Lanegan mini album, Still Life With Roses (Gargoyles Remixes) along with remixes of Beehive by Andrew Weatherall. 

Suns Of Arqa's Acid Tabla EP came out in 2016, produced by Sherwood and Wadada with the late Style Scott on drums (of Dub Syndicate). The bassline, tabla and rocking rhythms are all spot on. The original version of Acid Tabla was on Suns Of Arqa's 1980 album Revenge Of The Mozambites, Adrian credited as Adran Riddims.  

I'm A Winner is one of the standouts on this year's Africa Head Charge album A Trip To Bolgatanga, an album where Adrian and Bonjo shift the African Head Charge sound yet again. When they set out with AHC back in 1980 the idea was create 'a vision of a psychedelic Africa'. They made several definitive albums between 1980 and 1990, dub, sound FX, samples and African drums fused in a mystical sound. In 1990 they released their pinnacle, the mighty Songs Of Praise. In 2020 an album of extras including unreleased tracks from Songs Of Praise came out including Dub For The Spirits.

Bim Sherman became one of the key figures of the On U Sound collective, a man with a golden voice. Haunting Ground was on 1986's album of the same name, an album which featured Dub Syndicate and Roots Radics. The dub mix coming out on one of the pair of CD compilations titled Sherwood At The Controls. Bim died of cancer in 2000. His 1996 album Miracle is one of the lost gems of the 90s, songs from his back catalogue given a Bollywood makeover, re- recorded with Indian strings and Talvin Singh's percussion. 

Adrian dubbed out Primal Scream's entire Vanishing Point album, released as Echo Dek on Creation in 1997. Ju- 87 is a dub version of Stuka, a fairly uncompromising track in its original form. Adrian adds doorbells, and pulls rattling echo, deep bass, ricocheting bleeps and a scuzzy, screwed up dub to the fore. 

Long As I Can See The Light was a 1998 single by Monkey Mafia, released on Heavenly, a cover of a 1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival song. Monkey Mafia's cover is a lovely late night, downtempo cover. Adrian bends it into a new space. 

Bless Those is from Pay It All Back Vol. 4, released in 1993. Pay It All Back is a long running series of compilations/ samplers dating back to 1985. Little Annie has been part of the On U family since the early 90s, with David Harrow, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald all contributing music to Annie's vocals. A dense sound, distorted horns and dub FX.  

The Way Of The World is by LSK and Sherwood, a track on Pay It All Back Vol. 7 from 2019. LSK is British singer/MC Leigh Stephen Kenny, born in Kent and now in Leeds. This track is a suitably dubbed out way to close this mix, two and a half minutes of digital dub, noise and samples, unease and LSK's honeyed vocal.