Never Trust A Hippy

For twenty odd years now, Adrian Sherwood has been one of the major – if largely unsung – heroes of British music. From Tackhead and Dub Syndicate to Asian Dub Foundation and Sinéad O’Connor, there are few producers who understand dub and reggae to such an intense degree. Surprising then that not only has it taken him all this time to release his debut solo album, but also that it has appeared on Realworld and not his own beloved On-U Sound label. Recorded in the East End of London but with a vision that extends far further, Sherwood skilfully blends a world of sounds into one stylish melting pot. His use of musicians from Africa, Asia and Jamaica (both live and sampled) places dub in its rightful context on the world stage and throws up some interesting combinations – Ghetto Priest and SE Rogie on ‘Dead Man Smoking’, Transglobal Underground and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali on his remix of ‘Paradise Of Nada’. The verse-chorus-verse brigade will find themselves cut adrift but there is a real maverick musical genius at work here, after all this is the man who made an album of sampled football charts with Tackhead and called it The English Disease. Never Trust A Hippy might not take him any nearer to becoming a household name yet in its own unique way it is a veritable triumph.