Adrian Sherwood presents Dub No Frontiers

Adrian Sherwood of course knows his musical herstory and has spent a lifetime working as an ally with female artists from the very beginnings of his On-U Sound label with the New Age Steppers, a supergroup he co-founded with the Slits singer Ari Up that also featured Neneh Cherry, Vivian Goldman and Vicki Aspinall in its line-up. He also released New York-no wave singer Judy Nylon’s sole album 1982’s Pal Judy, worked with Akabu, the all-female reggae band and premiered Shara Nelson of Massive Attack fame on his label issuing her 1983 debut single Aiming At Your Heart. He also put out Short And Sweet, the 1992 debut album from Annie Anxiety Bandez under the Little Annie moniker and aided his daughter Denise Sherwood’s auspicious first album 2020’s This Road on Evergreen Recordings.

For Sherwood and his On-U Sound collective there are no frontiers and yet when he started travelling around the world, he began hearing the same story repeated over and over from the female artists he came across, how they felt doors were closed to them because of their gender. The idea behind the Dub No Frontiers album then is to provide a platform for some of the great international female artists currently operating to unite and celebrate in dub.

The results are spectacular: the 10 tracks, produced by Sherwood with half co-produced with the late great Lincoln ‘Style’ Scott and arranged by Skip ‘Little Axe’ McDonald, ring out with a vibrancy, richness and energy. From Rita Morar’s Meri Awaaz Suno (Hear My Voice), a fragile, beautiful piece sung in Hindi over the Sacred Ground Rhythm and Tunisia’s Neyssatou’s potent take on Bob Marley’s War sung in Arabic to Kerieva’s hypnotic Chavale sung in Romani, this is all crucial stuff.

Kerieva McCormick, who is spearheading the project with Sherwood, has been a studio artist with On-U Sound for over a decade, worked with Asian Dub Foundation, and is a multi-instrumentalist, writer/arranger, and singer. Currently writing her third solo album, she can be heard on numerous On-U releases on violin, double bass, cello, harmonium and vocals, including Sherwood’s 2012 Survival And Resistance album (he calls her the “string wizard”). Very much the Renaissance woman, she is the artistic director and choreographer of KAM-RI Dance Theatre and is currently working on a touring show with Tessa Pollitt from The Slits about Ari-Up’s life. Being part of the project from its inception, she maintained the importance of Dub No Frontiers representing a female warrior stance within the genre.

“Female artists not only singing but writing in their indigenous languages is incredibly powerful” she says. “It’s rare that indigenous music is given a platform at all and Adrian has really opened up opportunities with this project.”

For Rita Morar, who was introduced to Adrian by Asian Dub Foundation’s John Pandit G, Dub No Frontiers felt like the perfect fit. “As an independent female artist I wanted to write something that conveyed both my vulnerability and my strength, how through our music we are uplifted and become empowered.”

Getting the project together has been lengthy – it’s been some 10 years in the making but the process itself was remarkably straightforward. “In this day and age it’s easier than ever to connect,” says Adrian. “You simply digitise a rhythm, send a file of it to Japan, China, Tunisia, Africa, the vocalist sings on it, sends it back, it’s brilliant. Technology means we can unify the world through music.”

As for those files, “like most people who love reggae, I am obsessed with versions, which are unique to JA music,” he says. “When you hear the rhythm it’s a work of art and you love to hear countless versions of the same rhythm. I started accumulating and versioning rhythms, some existing rhythms such as War and some new ones. At one time I even considered doing a whole album of versions of the War rhythm.”

The nucleus of the new ones originated from a session in London with such reggae luminaries as keyboardist Franklin ‘Bubblers’ Waugh, who played with Sly and Robbie; the late bassist George Oban and the aforesaid drummer Style Scott, together Sherwood’s trusty rhythm section, plus guitarist Vince Black and the Ital Horns.

“Then we broke the rhythms down and re-cut them,” he says. “We remade them, rebuilt them completely, then upgraded them, making them better and better and better each time and then we invited the singers to sing over them. The project kept evolving. It kept growing and has turned into something extraordinarily powerful.”

The first track completed for the project was Love Hurts by Yehaiyahan, which begins Dub No Frontiers. The Guizhou-born, Shanghai based producer vocalist and DJ also records as Chacha, Faded Ghost, and is one half of AM444. Adrian and Yehaiyahan’s paths first crossed when he saw her on the mic in Shanghai one night. Influenced by the Bristol scene, she sings in Mandarin Chinese on this future dub.

From Japan, Likkle Mai started out in 1994 as the lead singer in rocksteady group the Dreamlets then the following year helmed dub band Dry and Heavy before debuting as a soloist with 2006’s Roots Candy. She delivers the superb Haste Makes Waste here.

Temi Oyedele, meanwhile, is a singer, songwriter and guitarist from Lagos who collaborates with Afrologic and is also a member of DuduWorx. She previously worked with Sherwood on his and Tectonic head honcho Pinch’s first album Late Night Endless and sings in Yorubic.

Maria Wenda, the wife of Benny Wenda, the president in exile of West Papua, provides the protest dub Okama Werek Halok which highlights the struggle of her motherland. “Maria isn’t a professional singer,” says Adrian, “but it was important to document her and her husband and their country’s story.”

Sherwood was introduced to JaGodDa by Joint Venture Sound System. Both hail from Poland where there is a thriving reggae scene of which Krysztalowy Aniol (Crystal Angel) is emblematic while Saba Tewelde brings the sound of young Eritrea with the soulful Semarulay Daqey, a paean to her homeland. The album closer is the compelling Little Cosmonaut by Nadya Ostroff DR.NO. “We’ve known Nadya since her days playing guitar with The Slits,” Sherwood says. “She is of Russian descent and the song is about the first astronaut dog to be put into space.”

The album is wrapped in a striking front cover image of Afeni Shakur Davis painted by artist, musician and filmmaker Peter Harris. His bold portraits of trailblazing, transformative women dominate the album’s accompanying booklet forming a perfect visual foil to the music within.

Sherwood is proud of the work everyone has created here, and rightfully so. “It’s the right people working together at the right time with the right label. It might not be commercial but it is a beautiful thing. I know people are going to love it.” He also has plans to take the Dub No Frontiers album out on the road. “The vision from the beginning was to make it a live thing, to have this amazing line up backed by an all-female band. Imagine that.”

Indeed. For now though we can marvel at the concept in its album form. It really is a beautiful thing.