Animosity \/ Rise And Fall \/ Bleach It<\/a><\/p>\nONU Sound artists, London Underground are uploaded on KYPP tonight, the two LPs released almost back to back in 1983. These are not\u00a0my two favorite ONU\u00a0releases by a country mile but still worthy of inclusion onto this site for those who would like to check out this interesting\u00a0but not heard about much nowadays band that were important in instigating ONU Sound records right at the very start.<\/p>\n
The text below wrenched off the skysaw.org site during the cover of darkness with the help of the KYPP crowbar.<\/p>\n
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London Underground were one of the very first On-U Sound groups but were largely left behind as the label established itself as a sonic force to be reckoned with. The Editor back-tracks to those formative early days:<\/span><\/p>\nLondon Underground like the New Age Steppers can truly proclaim to have been there at the very beginning of On-U Sound. For it was they that occupied the opposite sides of On-U Sound\u2019s first release (ON-U S1), London Underground taking the B-side with a track extolling the virtues of educating yourself in foreign tongues \u2013 \u2018Learn A Language\u2019. <\/span>They were also part of the first On-U live shows that Adrian Sherwood saw as the cornerstone of musical activity for his newly founded label.<\/span><\/p>\nIn their four or so years of existence, like all On-U \u2018bands\u2019 of the time the line-up of London Underground was fluid, but retained a focus around Kendall Ernest (bass), Martin Frederix (aka Martin Harrison) (guitar, bass, vocals), Pete Holdsworth (vocals, melodica) and Danny Sheals (drums). There were numerous guest appearances \u2013 perhaps most notably from Dr Pablo (aka Pete Stroud) and Kishi Yamamoto (at the time Adrian\u2019s co-director of On-U).<\/span><\/p>\nOn-U\u2019s financial clout in its fledgling days was often fragile and one of the releases that was licensed to Situation 2 while its bank balance recovered was London Underground\u2019s second single \u2018Train Of Thought\u2019 (ON-U S2). It wasn\u2019t until 1983, after the \u2018Watching West Indians In The Cold\u2019 10\u2033EP in the now much sought after \u2018On-U Sound Disco Plate\u2019 series (ON-U DP4), that the debt LP \u2018At Home With The London Underground\u2019 (ON-U LP22) appeared, back rightly on its \u2018home\u2019 label. Amrik Rai, of the UK\u2019s NME music paper, wrote of the album:<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c\u2026aside from the appetising smack of their \u2018Watching West Indians In The Cold\u2019 10\u2033, this is the first real proof of the group. Aided in their task by the macabre melodica machinations of [Dr] Pablo \u2026 \u2018At Home With The London Underground\u2019 is an eerie stroll through surreptitious vocal incantations and aspirate saxophones. Again, just one play is enough to realise their contentious and acute slant on the seamier aspects of dub. I\u2019m not quite sure where they fit in between African Head Charge and The Dub Syndicate but it\u2019s around there somewhere. Together these two records are each other\u2019s antidotes and in their own right make compulsive listening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe delayed debut LP was followed later the same year by what was to be the last album of new material. Weighing-in at just six tracks \u2018Current Affairs Session\u2019 was classified as a mini-LP and given the catalogue number ON-U LP28M accordingly. In the press release of 20th October 1983 that hailed its arrival, and that of a 7\u2033 single (ON-U S3) featuring versions of two of its tracks, On-U proclaimed:<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c[\u2018Current Affairs Session\u2019] develops many of the themes and ideas established on the debut LP \u2026 as well as exploring new ground. Material featured on this LP roughly falls into two categories; tracks like \u2018Rise And Fall\u2019 and \u2018Between The Lines\u2019 were developed during live performance, and although both have been re-structured to suit studio work, they remain essentially well-rehearsed and well-loved \u2018show songs\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n\u2018Motivation\u2019 and \u2018Animosity\u2019 on the other hand, were recorded in a more spontaneous fashion. The overall sound being built up with layers of rhythm and instrumentation, relying to a large degree on improvisation and intensive writing and re-writing on the spot. Most of the work done on these tracks was done in the studio with the tape rolling. The rhythms on the new LP incorporate many new ideas and techniques, and whilst maintaining traditional London Underground values of \u2018hardness\u2019 and drive, etc., attempts have been made to free the rhythm section from the strict 4\/4 dance tempo, and yet retain the all important elements of swing and \u2018dance-ability\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\nLyrically this LP and its companion seven-inch single take much more of a direct, hard approach than any previous work so far. In short both records have more punch than ever. They are different. This is London Underground tougher and harder than ever before. And with Ade Sherwood at the mixing desk what more do you want?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIt was a bold statement \u2013 but apart of the \u2018Compilation 80-84\u2019 CD (ON-U CD7) released in 1990 that featured both LPs in whole, that was the last London Underground material committed to wax. Over time band members drifted off into other projects; Martin Frederix went on to form the Fellow Travellers with his brother Tim, fellow ex-On-U stalwart Jeb Loy Nichols and Jeb\u2019s wife-to-be Lorraine Morley. Most recently he became a sound engineer for the much coveted Jamiroquai. Dan Sheals was also involved in various projects by Michael Wadada\u2019s Suns Of Arqa.<\/span><\/p>\nAn On-U newsletter did report that an \u2018On-U Sound Extravaganza Live In Tokyo\u2019 album featuring London Underground was going to be a 1984 \u201cbig seller\u201d, but no catalogue number was ever allocated or anything else heard about the release. We can therefore only assume that it was either never recorded or its comprising material lies forgotten, deep in the On-U archives.<\/span><\/p>\nPete Holdsworth\u2019s friendship with Adrian Sherwood lead around 1994 to them forming a partnership and setting up the now highly respected reggae reissue label Pressure Sounds, which within a couple of years he took complete control of. He also now manages the Green Tea imprint \u2013 perhaps most well known for licensing releases of the Japanese dub-reggae band Dry & Heavy for the UK.<\/span><\/p>\nDespite their significant place in On-U Sound history, London Underground releases have been largely and deliberately left off the reissue list \u2013 making virtually everything they released hard to find and prized to own. Pete Holdsworth, casting a rightfully critical ear over his yesteryear output, is not impressed with London Underground\u2019s recordings and as a result has rarely sanctioned Adrian the right to reissue his old material.<\/span><\/p>\nListening back now to the sounds of London Underground over 20 years since their creation, perhaps he is right, the music hasn\u2019t aged as well as its peer recordings. But as some great philosopher has surely uttered, \u201c\u2026you don\u2019t know where you are until you know where you\u2019ve been\u2026\u201d, and therefore in a musical development sense, London Underground are as much a part of what built the sound we know of as \u201cOn-U\u201d as any Creation Rebel album before it did or any Little Axe album since.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fall In \/ Great Expectations \/ You Dont Know \/ Thud\u00a0And Blunder Hole In The Ground \/ Ridley Road \/ Watch Your Step \/ Moving Mountains\u00a0 Between The Lines \/ Motivation \/ 1-3 Animosity \/ Rise And Fall \/ Bleach It ONU Sound artists, London Underground are uploaded on KYPP tonight, the two LPs released […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5448"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7974,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions\/7974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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