{"id":14001,"date":"2025-07-01T10:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T15:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=14001"},"modified":"2025-07-01T11:00:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T16:00:22","slug":"iconic-uk-avant-dub-pioneer-adrian-sherwood-releasing-1st-new-solo-album-in-13-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=14001","title":{"rendered":"Iconic UK avant Dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood releasing 1st new solo album in 13 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After previewing new music with four track EP\u00a0The Grand Designer<\/em>, Adrian Sherwood delivers a brand new full-length work August 22, 2025 –\u00a0The Collapse Of Everything –\u00a0<\/em>his first solo album in 13 years and only the fourth in his long career. Meticulously constructed,\u00a0The Collapse Of Everything\u00a0<\/em>sees Sherwood move beyond the mixing desk and take centre stage, pushing his ever adventurous sound into new frontiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Collapse of Everything<\/em>\u00a0is being released on clear 12\u201d LP vinyl, black 12\u201d LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming services.\u00a0Listen to the title track:\u00a0https:\/\/on-u-sound.ffm.to\/thecollapseofeverything<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as the release of a new album, Sherwood will be performing for the first time as a solo artist, and touring with his own live band. The live show, which will premiere this autumn at the ‘Dub sessions 20th anniversary\u2019 in Japan, includes long-time collaborator Doug Wimbish (Living Color, The Sugar Hill Gang, Tackhead), Alex White (Primal Scream, Fat White Family) and Mark Bandola (The Lucy Show). The UK debut will be a major London show in February 2026 to be announced soon. Sherwood will also be touring in North America, Australia and Europe in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s on his own thrillingly unique solo records, as a band member of groups such as Tackhead, or as the creative force infusing his iconic aesthetic into the long-running and highly collectable On-U Sound label, Adrian\u2019s work as an artist has always paralleled his work as a producer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst underpinned by a natural dub sensibility, the music presented on The Collapse of Everything<\/em> is arguably his most ambitious to date, fluidly crossing genre borders and seamlessly fusing a wide range of influences from a lifetime of listening and producing. With long gestation periods, Adrian\u2019s carefully crafted albums are very much worth the wait; his first album Never Trust A Hippy?<\/em> was snapped up by Peter Gabriel\u2019s Real World label, gathering together a diverse array of talent to make the tracks, including crack Jamaican rhythm section Sly & Robbie, Shara Nelson of Massive Attack and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali (nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). Becoming A Clich\u00e9<\/em> featured a different but no less compelling cast, including reggae heavyweights Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry, Dennis Bovell, Little Roy and Bim Sherman, and cemented his popularity in Japan with the chart hit, \u2018Animal Magic\u2019. Survival & Resistance was more of a concept album, built around tuned percussion. Supporting this trilogy were the Recovery Time<\/em> mini-album, and an entire re-work of his second album, re-titled Dub Clich\u00e9<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contemplating the difference between the hundreds of albums he has helped other people make, and his own work, Sherwood notes: \u201c I\u2019ve made record after record as a producer for other artists, and I\u2019m proud of every single one, but doing it as a solo artist I get the choice to call every shot and I\u2019m not trying to please anyone else involved except myself. On this album it\u2019s going to be a joy working it and trying to represent it live, and hopefully people will get off on it, because I think it\u2019s a really good piece of work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining the title and genesis of the new work, Adrian continues: \u201cRecently I lost two great friends, Mark Stewart & Keith LeBlanc, and started working with the idea of doing another solo record, because it\u2019s been a long time since Survival & Resistance. Mark had written a song, and part of a lyric was hidden in the song about \u201cThe Collapse Of Everything\u201d. It seemed a very appropriate title, both summing up my feelings about losing Mark and Keith, and on another level, what\u2019s going on in the world now both politically and environmentally.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started making tracks I was experimenting with tunings, and things kind of crashing together, trying to create a sonic that would flow and work together as a cohesive album. I wanted to take the tuned percussion ideas from the last album forward with more of the new things I\u2019ve picked up in recent years, all the plugins and effects and things, while also keeping the vintage gear in the mix.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While understandably more reflective than earlier records in his discography, the album plays out like a classic film score with its widescreen vistas and mood shifts, incorporating everything from dust-caked desert blues to ambient-esque sound washes decorated in seemingly infinite detail, everything from delicate piano motifs to heavily processed sound effects moving in and out of a wide-panned stereo field, at times coalescing into an almost hallucinogenic state. The producer says: \u201cI was basically trying to make a soundtrack encompassing all the things I like including good musicianship, dub techniques, and also good rhythms. I wanted to evolve this into a live show because, when I put out my first solo album Never Trust A Hippy, that\u2019s when my name went from the back of the sleeve to the front. It\u2019s taken me a while to get used to the idea, but now I\u2019m comfortable with being out front, even on the live stage, so I\u2019ve tried to make something really sonically challenging, and take myself out of my comfort zone. It\u2019s important to keep moving forward.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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