Adrian Sherwood - A free spirit at the mixing desk

Where might you imagine bumping into Adrian Sherwood? You might think of the On-U Sound studios in London, where the producer laid the foundations of dub music, or perhaps some dimly lit European club, where he might have arranged to meet his good friend Mark Stewart (Pop Group) before a night out. Instead, we met him in an entirely different setting: FoodStock – A Rural Day Of Peace, Food & Music, a food and music festival held every year in the hills of the Campania countryside. As for what brings a thoroughly urban figure like Adrian Sherwood to such a setting, he explains it himself: his love for reggae and roots philosophy has always gone hand in hand with promoting and enjoying occasions where his music can amplify the beauty of a place; luckily for us, this time that place is Italy. The interview unfortunately takes place as darkness falls, shortly before the producer's set, and we find him worn out by the local heat, but still smiling and ready to share the best of his career.

Let's start with your latest work with Pinch, “Man Vs Sofa“. I can't deny I loved it. A record that blends the dub sounds of the past with more contemporary trends. How did the idea of collaborating with Robert Ellis come about?

It's a funny story. Ellis's older brother has always been a huge fan of mine, and both he and Robert basically grew up listening to On-U Sound records. During an event at Fabric in London for Tectonic, he invited me to play as his guest for the night. That's where we met in person. That experience led me to invite Pinch to do the same for one of my nights in Paris. After that I told him we should get together and record something, and we became great friends.

I was also struck by the album's title: "Man Vs Sofa". Why that name?

Actually, since these days too much weight isn't put on album titles anymore, we thought of it as an invitation not to be too lazy. Literally, "don't relax too much!".

What differences emerged from your first work with Pinch, “Last Night Endless”? What's the gap between the two records?

I think that on the first one we were basically working individually on the same album, while on the second album we changed register completely. We really started collaborating as a team; I began to feel Pinch as a part of myself, and I hope it was the same for him. The tracks are the result of a sonic compromise between our two styles, and on “Man Vs Sofa” we managed to achieve that as if we were a single person.

Coming to your work behind the console, let's get technical. How do you approach sound creation - do you experiment somewhat blindly, or do you have your own procedures, a few tricks?

First of all, I always work in analogue. Sure, I love messing around with digital too, and above all I realise how important it is to keep up with new technologies. Despite that, I always start from analogue, because over so many years of my career I've developed my own personal system of EQ settings. The settings I bring into the studio, in particular, are unique - I'm not exaggerating when I say that right now only I have them - built on a perfect balance between delay and reverb. It's in that house of cards of settings that my personal sound lives. That's exactly why I'm so protective of the hard work it took to reach those sound EQ calibrations. I also have my tried-and-tested tricks both live and in the studio - for example, during a passage of a track at higher decibels, I prefer to slip in a wave bend, so as to soften the impact, and then let it dissolve into a delay before starting another effect. What matters is giving the track dynamism and movement, never abandoning the pulse of the rhythm. On the latest record with Pinch, in fact, he was excellent with digital programming, and that allowed me to create a more complex sound.

Given your immense experience across such different genres as punk, post-punk, industrial, techno and trip-hop, what does dub music represent for you?

To me dub doesn't mean a musical genre, it means a particular way of producing electronic music. If we tried to figure out how many artists today use that given set of techniques, we could probably create the same set as those who make dub music, house, techno, etc. Electronic music, unlike rock in the classic sense, allows every artist to reinterpret and reshape a sound. I make a version, my version of music, my vision of doing dub. The link between dub and punk is definitely there, and it runs deep: it's about minimalising the sound produced by an entire band. Playing a guitar chord or a drum roll becomes a drum machine loop, dubbing, overdubbing, a process of cutting and adding. Punk is something that's been absorbed into my version of dub and is part of it.

Electronic dancefloor music is sometimes accused of being made purely to please the crowd, though I'm fairly sure that's not your case. So, in your view, what electronic music is made for the art's sake, to quote Wilde?

I'm obviously speaking for myself. Dub is when you have a song and you make many versions of that song. Among those versions, as you work on them you realise that one or two are properly dub, so you keep mixing those in particular. But what really matters is having many different ways to play the same track. Dub lets you cross over with every other genre without much resistance, to explore the world of music far and wide until you create your own dub version worthy of existing.

Talking about the golden era of On-U Sound, which memories are dearest to you?

Honestly, I'm not the type to look back nostalgically at memories, at moments to long for... If anything, I hope tonight will be a good memory to keep! As for the On-U Sound crew, we've all stayed in close touch, and whenever we feel like making a good memory, we put on an event.

Beyond your collaboration with Pinch, how is your solo career going? Do you intend to keep it up?

If you know “Survival And Resistance” (2012 solo album), then you've handled one of the works I'm certainly most proud of. It's built entirely on tuning, on downtuning right down to extremely low frequencies. So far, nothing I've produced before or since has satisfied me as much as that record. I'll try to replicate it in the future, if not outdo myself, but I've got no certainties at the moment.

Do you consider it experimental, or more in line with your idea of Sherwood-brand music?

On an execution level it's certainly experimental, because I didn't need other musicians to achieve my goal, but I see it as the record closest to my idea of dub.

Since you'll always be a model for any producer, could you point me to a must-have of Black music that anyone wanting to do your job should own? An essential record for understanding what good music to produce actually is?

I believe that a producer looking to build a broad musical perspective has to start with reggae, first and foremost. It would be hard to single out just one album. I'm a huge fan of Bim Sherman (who I also worked with), Burning Spear, and Joe Higgs (also nicknamed "Father of reggae"), who I consider fundamental figures in Black music of the latter half of the twentieth century. To me, they're sometimes more experimental than dub itself. If I really have to pick one, I'll go with Bim Sherman. I'd point to "Miracle" from 1996, an acoustic album that conveys an immense sense of peace — not electronic, but essential as a starting point for a sound that's truly whole and soothing to the senses.

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