Adrian Sherwood - The Grand Designer (Preorder 13/06/25)

Adrian Sherwood - The Grand Designer (Preorder 13/06/25)

Label: On-U Sound - ONUDP67 - 5056818801754
Format: 10" Black
Country: UK
Released: 13th June 2025
Genre: Reggae / Electronic
Style: Reggae / Electronic

Description
Adrian Sherwood returns with his first music as a solo artist in 13 years with the mutating rhythmic soundscapes of The Grand Designer EP, the latest instalment in On-U Sound's long-running and much-loved 'disco plate' series. 

The title track serves as a trailer for a forthcoming full-length album, with different instruments filtered through Sherwood's bank of effects over an irresistible groove, and typically deft percussive detail.

""Let's Come Together"" flips the same rhythm into a mystical dub, with sadly departed friend and collaborator Lee ""Scratch"" Perry providing typically off-the-wall vocal interjections. It also serves as a reminder that Sherwood has been far from idle since his last release under his own name: in recent years releasing critically acclaimed new albums with not only the Upsetter, but also Horace Andy, Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) & Panda Bear (Animal Collective), African Head Charge, Spoon, Creation Rebel, Pinch and more. 

""Russian Oscillator"" perhaps cleaves closest to the Sherwood & Pinch records, experimental electronics weaving in and out of heavy sound system sonics and a ruffneck dancehall adjacent swing. 

The EP closes with ""Cold War Skank"", a left hand turn off the highway into scorched desert blues, distorted slide guitar patterns over widescreen film score atmospherics.

Available as a strictly limited and collectable 10"" vinyl, mastered and cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, housed in a classic On-U disco plate sleeve, with cover collage by Studio Tape-Echo.

Tracklist

A1. The Grand Designer

A2. Let's Come Together (feat. Lee "Scratch" Perry)

B1. Russian Oscillator

B2. Cold War Skank