It’s been over a decade since UK dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood last released an album under his own name, but the On-U Sound founder has hardly been idle in that time.
The 13 years since he released Survival & Resistance have seen Sherwood focused on production work, remixes and collaborations, including full-length reworkings of albums by Spoon and Panda Bear and Sonic Boom, as well as a 2015 collaboration with dubstep figurehead Pinch.
“This new album is the first in 13 years with my name on the front cover, but I think most of the records are kind of mine anyway,” Sherwood says, half-joking. “They're not really, I have to satisfy the singers and the other musicians. On this one though, by being on the front cover, it gives me more focus, more attention, and also the chance to call all the shots myself.”
In some ways, new album The Collapse of Everything picks up where its solo predecessor left off. Sherwood’s ear for atmospheric, haunting effects is as evident as ever, as is his ability to build engaging, vibrant arrangements from a sparse handful of elements.
The concept of Adrian Sherwood as a solo artist is an interesting one in 2025. Sherwood himself is neither a vocalist nor a musician or songwriter in the traditional sense. Rather, he plays his studio gear like an instrument, putting arrangements together through a process of primarily analogue mixing and editing.
On one hand, this doesn’t make Sherwood all that different from a significant proportion of contemporary electronic musicians, whose skillsets lie more in wrangling DAW timelines than traditional musicianship. At its heart though, Sherwood’s music is still very musician-led, and his approach is closer to that of auteur producers of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“I modelled my approach a bit on having a professional rhythm section,” Sherwood explains. “I was lucky to work with Jamaican musicians like Style Scott, who’ve been part of a great rhythm section, providing tracks for the great ones, also Doug [Wimbish] and the Sugarhill guys.
“I try to do that again, to have my little crew, so it gives you a sonic continuity with the production. By having access to a pool of musicians, it makes it seem almost like the vintage house bands.
“It’s like a poor man's Tamla or a poor man's Channel One or something,” he laughs. “I don't mean a poor man's at all, but that's the kind of model I vaguely use. Sadly, we're not as hit oriented as a lot of the other people.”
For all that a lack of personal musicianship might mean relying on the contributions of others, it's clearly been a significant factor in developing Sherwood’s approach to music making.
“I think by not being a musician you feel a little bit of an imposter in some ways,” he says. “But I've got a passion for it, so much that I think a lot of great musicians kind of respect me. I also like beautiful mistakes in the productions, where it's not all perfect. That gives a sense of freedom for everybody playing.”
Although Sherwood’s fundamental approach hasn’t changed drastically over the 13 years since his last album, studio technology has moved on significantly. Despite the analogue hardware and hands-on philosophy at its heart, Sherwood’s setup isn’t some sort of vintage time capsule.
“There's been some good plugins that have come along,” Sherwood explains on how his studio has changed. “Some great bits of outboard have come along too, but I am still using a lot of the vintage stuff I used before.”
Perhaps surprisingly, one of the most significant ways Sherwood’s music making has changed lies in his embrace of AI. As he explains to us, AI-assisted separation tools offer Sherwood a new way to deconstruct music and rework music, in the classic dub fashion.
“There's the AI thing [Hit'n'Mix] RipX, which has the ability to almost make a ghost out of your own work,” he explains. “I've been enjoying doing things where I can maybe take a track we're working on and RipX it, ghost it, slow it down and bend the sound and experiment with the pitching and EQ sweeping and stuff. That has been a big part of the new record, as well as carrying on where I left off with the last one, using tuned percussions to make little sequential noises”
In our new video interview, which you can watch at the top of the page or via our MusicRadar Tech YouTube channel, Sherwood goes into more detail about the vintage gear and inspirations behind The Collapse of Everything, as well as the shifting nature of what ‘dub’ is.
Adrian Sherwood’s The Collapse of Everything is out now via On-U Sound.
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