The Collapse Of Everything

Adrian Sherwood's The Grand Designer EP that lit up June and continues to get regular plays round here. The lead and title track is a beautifully rich and textured piece of dub, all manner of instruments and FX flying in and out of the mix over a bobbing rhythm and occasional bursts of siren. It's followed by Let's Stay Together, a track in the old style dub tradition of using the same rhythm and some of the sounds but with a vocal drizzled over the top, in this case one b the late Lee 'Scratch' Perry, the Upsetter jutting in and out in typical fashion. I suspect Mr Sherwood has files and tapes filled with Lee Perry vocals just waiting to find a track. 

Let's Stay Together is followed by Russian Oscillator which may (or may not) be based on the same building blocks but distorted and bent out of shape, rough industrial abstract dub. The fourth track, Cold War Skank, is a joy, guitars and rumbling bass, echoes of the desert and Saharan blues. 

The Grand Designer can be heard and bought here. It turns out that the EP is a spearhead, leading the charge for a Sherwood solo album to follow in August, a record called The Collapse Of Everything. The title track and album opener dropped onto the internet earlier this week, old school dub from the On U studio- languorous dub groove, bubbling bass, sounds ricocheting left and right, FX and flow, piano and fuzz guitar. 

The Collapse Of Everything was partly inspired by the losses of Mark Stewart and Keith LeBlanc- the title comes from a Stewart song- and features Doug Wimbish, Gaudi and Brian Eno all making appearances among a cast of sixteen players. You can pre- order the album on vinyl and digitally at Bandcamp. 

How Long Is Now/ Galactic Ride

Sheffield band Pale Blue Eyes released an album earlier this year called New Place. The band are a trio, married couple Matt and Lucy Board (him vocals and guitars, her drums and synths) and bassist Aubrey Simpson. They moved from South Devon to South Yorkshire and embraced the Steel City's love of electronics and synths, making an album that sounds inspire by the krauty sounds of Neu! and Harmonium and the perpetual motion of the autobahn. The album is here. 

A month ago a Richard Norris remix of opening track How Long Is Now came out in both vocal and instrumental form. Richard is no stranger to the cosmische sounds of West Germany in the 70s and set the controls for the heart of the Mittel Europe, a Klaus Dinger motorik drumbeat and throbbing sequenced bassline propelling the song to new speeds with Matt's guitars gone all Rother- esque. All the versions are available at Bandcamp. 

Gordon Kaye has been around almost as long as Richard Norris, DJing in clubs in his hometown of Brighton since the mid- 80s and starting a night at The Escape Club called The Sunshine Playroom that became a lynchpin for South Coast 80s psychedelic/ indie, frequented by Alan McGee, Primal Scream and Norman Cook. Since the late 80s he's DJed all around the world, playing indie- dance and various shades of house and dance music. Recently he's reignited his passion for making music and the first fruits are a nine minute cosmic chug glide called Galactic Ride, synth arpeggios firing off against the burbling bassline and as with Pale Blue Eyes, a sense of perpetual motion, building steadily ever upwards. Listen to it at Soundcloud. 

I Was On The 212

Back in 2011 Azealia Banks announced her arrival into the musical world with the song 212, one of the songs that defined the 2010s. Since then she's become as well known for her political views, mental health issues and feuds with others, and there's no doubt some of her views are pretty extreme and (depending on your own political views) indefensible. But there's no denying the power of 212, the sheer energy in the track and the flow of Banks' delivery, a blur of lines that describe her youth in Harlem, her sexuality, race and power. 

Last week Leo Zero put out an edit of 212, Azealia's voice chopped up and re- arranged over the very recognisable bass and synths of Once In A Lifetime. It's massive, exhilarating and sure to rock a party. Get it here.