Midnight Scorchers

Idioma disponible: inglés

At 71, Horace Andy has never sounded better. His collaboration with Adrian Sherwood (founder of the legendary English label On-U Sound, known for its numerous collisions between electronica and reggae since the beginning of the 80s) has been running for two albums and is arguably the best decision he’s made since Massive Attack. Sherwood, a big fan, had been dreaming of this collaboration for years and has produced a ‘sound system’ take on the album Midnight Rocker, released in spring 2022.

The English wizard, who resurrected Lee Perry with the excellent albums Rainford and Heavy Rain in 2019, extracts the very essence of Horace Andy's discography, forty years on from Skylarking for Studio One in 1972. Sherwood had him re-sing some of those classics—like ‘Mr Bassie’, cooked up here by the artist Daddy Freddy (‘More Bassy’)—and he then applied On-U Sound’s trademark ‘deep’ processing, creating long, cosmic instrumental tracks.

Daddy Freddy returns on ‘Midnight Scorchers’, on which Horace Andy covers his Massive Attack track ‘Safe from Harm’. The cello and melodica are as fascinating as ever on ‘Sleepy’s Night Cap’ (a remix of ‘Rock to Sleep’). ‘Feverish’—the brilliant dubby version of ‘Fever’, one of his first hits for Coxsone—is also fantastic, as is the junglist version of ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’. A success from start to finish. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz