Sherwood at the Controls Volume 2: 1985-1990 highlights a timely bit of synergy. In 1979, the British producer and mixer Adrian Sherwood had established his On-U Sound label/collective as a base for his groundbreaking mixture of dub, reggae, and post-punk. As the ‘80s reached their halfway point, industrial and “electronic body music” were making serious inroads into the dance and alternative scenes. The harder-edged, often militant industrial and EBM style was a natural fit for Sherwood’s uncompromising, anything-goes approach. A signature sound was born, one that had a major effect on the landscape of alternative music in the second half of the decade and into the next.
The 16 tracks that comprise this follow up to 2015’s Sherwood at the Controls Volume 1: 1979-1984 showcase much of the music and style that people most readily associate with Sherwood. KMFDM’s “Don’t Blow Your Top”, a catchy collision of propulsive Giorgio Moroder Eurodisco, heavy machinery, and Germanic rigidity, was a hit for Wax Trax! Records, which was industrial epicenter in the United States.
Another major Wax Trax! artist underwent a complete aesthetic transformation with Sherwood’s help. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen had signed to Sire Records, who hooked him up with Sherwood to toughen up his nasal synthpop. Thirty years later, there are still claims that the resultant Twitch was more of a Sherwood album than a Jourgensen album. In any case, Sherwood’s influence is clear on his remix of “All Day”. He shrouds Jourgensen’s voice in distortion. Crucially, he replaces the original drum programming with his pneumatic, jackhammer beats. These two elements would go on to become Jourgensen trademarks.
“All Day” might just be the ultimate example of Sherwood’s ability to imbue a song with his unmistakable heft yet somehow manage not to overwhelm or sabotage it. But it’s not the only example on Sherwood at the Controls Volume 2. There’s the industrial hip-hop of the Beatnigs’ classic “Television”, which Beatnigs main man Michael Franti later popularized with his subsequent band, Disposable Heroes of Hiphopracy. Or the playful, slinky funk of Pankow’s “Girls & Boys”. If these are some Sherwood’s most structured productions, Mark Stewart’s “Hypnotized” represents the opposite extreme. The ex-Pop Group singer’s freewheeling sound collage takes in bits of hip-hop, metal, wind tunnel noise, even Whitney Houston. It’s an early example of what came to be known as “sampladelic”. In between these extremes falls Sherwood’s own Tackhead project and the epic “Mind at the End of the Tether”.
Sherwood at the Controls Volume 2: 1985-1990 also contains plenty of evidence that Sherwood never forgot his and On-U sounds roots in reggae and dub. Another of his projects, Dub Syndicate, is represented by two tracks. African Head Charge’s “Hold Some Version” exchanges thundering echo for a haunting tribal atmosphere. And no less legendary figures than Bim Sherman and Lee “Scratch” Perry himself make appearances, solidifying Sherwood as a natural heir to the likes of dub greats Perry and King Tubby.
The underlying musical approaches on display here are varied and eclectic. But Sherwood’s sound from this period makes a consistent impression across any genre. It leaves you feeling like you are in a war zone, with bombardment coming from both land and air. Somehow, though, the sonic violence is tempered with a discernable human soul.
Add to both volumes of Sherwood at the Controls Trevor Jackson’s Science Fiction Dancehall Classics On-U Sound retrospective from 2015, and you have a pretty good taste of Sherwood’s unique, ingenious sonic world. Even decades later, it’s a world worth getting lost in.