Skip McDonald has been a core member of the On-U Sound creative crew since 1984 (1). His credits crop up on recordings by pretty much all the label’s key artists, from African Head Charge to Mark Stewart. McDonald is also more often than not present on the majority of imprint co-founder, Adrian Sherwood’s countless remixes. 

A multi-instrumentalist, but first and foremost a guitarist, Little Axe is a project that McDonald started in 1993, returning and paying tribute to the blues that he learnt at his father’s knee. Using this alias he’s so far cut 10 studio albums. While Sherwood has had a hand in each of these long-players, only 2 of them were released on On-U (2). These have both now been reissued on vinyl. 

Hard Grind dates from 2002, and is, perhaps, the “straighter” of the 2 records. While the production techniques are modern, it stays “truer” to the source. The album opens with a version of Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground. Originally recorded in 1927, the song was shot into space 5 decades later, on the Voyager expedition’s Golden Record, and famously inspired Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas movie score. McDonald’s take features a narrated intro from Johnson himself. His voice a piece of history preserved in a haunted atmosphere of reverb and bent steel string notes. The second track stars another blues legend, in this case Junior Kimbrough, who explains what he believes the root of the music to be. The rhythm walks, strolls, harmonica howls, and the backing chorus summons a Deep South spiritual. Sherwood adding only subtle echo. 

Run Here Boy is a slow, world weary wail. Its snares delayed and phased. Temple tingsha and chanting monks making it hypnotic, narcotic, psychedelic. More than a tad trippy. While One Drop Blues is built on traditional foot stomps and hollers, Midnight Dream is a skunk funk skank constructed from rattling grounation congas. Walk Right Shoes is a ghostly gospel that sings “this dependency makes you a slave you see” and of “riding on the white horse.”

Three of the remaining tunes are drum machine driven. Long Way To Go representing the set at its most dubbed out. McDonald’s guitar sucked backwards and soaked in heavy delay washes. Tight Like That uses a sampled sermon to preach strength in hard times, while Bim Sherman’s sweet roots vocal leads the serene, closing, Seek The Truth.

Released in 2011, If You Want Loyalty Buy A Dog, purposefully blurs the boundaries between blues and reggae (3). In the process intentionally revealing the genres’ shared African ancestry. To assist with this 3 of the tracks are built on archival On-U rhythms (4). Two of these are old Dub Syndicate tunes. I Got Da Blues pits lonely harmonica, reminiscent of Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon A Time In The West, against the previously Margaret Thatcher sampling No Alternative. Early In The Morning employs Forward Not Back, from the album Stoned Immaculate. Where From Here repurposes Singers & Players Pneumatic.  

Numbers such as Song To Sing and Come Here Dog And Get Your Bone map out a slow, steady space uniting skanking and R&B. Reminding listeners that reggae evolved from the American soul spun Jamaican radio stations (5). 

Something else that the blues and roots have in common are calls for resilience and resistance. Both were born in Babylon. The album includes an incredible, atmospheric bottleneck slide reading of Amazing Grace, the 18th Century hymn penned by former slave trader turned abolitionist John Newton. I Ain’t Going Down is a solid stepping, sufferers’ shuffle. 

The vocals on the album are almost exclusively samples, provided by Steve “On The Wire” Barker, who sounds like he’s been accessing Harry Smith’s legendary Folkways’ Anthologies Of American Folk Music. The strong Southern aspect giving the deep, meditative set the feeling that it’s been reclaimed from Eno & Byrne’s Bush Of Ghosts. Across and throughout both LPs Skip McDonald’s singular, signature 6-string picking – alternately elegant delicate filigree and tiny metal shredding shards – a technique that’s shone on so many On-U Sound productions, shapes something truly unique from blues’ tropes. 

The Little Axe albums Hard Grind and If You Want Loyalty Buy A Dog can be ordered on vinyl – for the first time – can be ordered directly from On-U Sound. 

More detail on the Little Axe recordings can be found on the essential Skysaw resource. 

NOTES

1. McDonald’s On-U debut was backing Gary Clail, as Tackhead, in 1986. However, he had first worked with Sherwood, as part of Fats Comet, 2 years before. 

2. On-U’s original model was to be a production house, rather than a label, with the aim of introducing associated artists to larger, richer concerns. Plus, Sherwood has always been pretty candid about On-U’s chaotic finances, with the last session being sold to pay for the next, in the past, often in a very hand to mouth fashion.   

3. Around 25 years ago, sat in Queen Elizabeth Hall, on London’s South Bank I caught an On-U Sound showcase performed in conjunction with the magazine, The Wire. While the whole evening was incredible, the moment that totally blew my mind was when – via Sherwood at the controls – effects were lifted, step by step, from a drop of heavyweight dub, revealing the underlying rhythm to be a dusty old blues. Decades later, in conversation, Adrian confirmed this was a Little Axe experiment. 

4. The original CD contains 2 more archival On-U rhythms: Call It What You Like borrows Dub Syndicate’s More And More, while Moaning & Groaning makes great use of their rarity Tremolo Dub. 

5. One of King Tubby’s Hi-Fi boasts was “king of sound and blues.” Which is the title of another Dub Syndicate tune.