Live from 2030

I mentioned this 1981 On-U Sound classic in the last post, so we'll go with it as the next record to share. Low hanging fruit seems like a good idea while I try to get back into the swing of this...

New Age Steppers - Action Battlefield

Beat Records ‎– BRC-96

CD, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Paper Sleeve

Japan, 2004 (Originally released in 1981 on Statik Records in the UK)

More info

Tracklist

1 My Whole World

2 Observe Life

3 Got To Get Away

4 My Love

5 Problems

6 Nuclear Zulu

7 Guiding Star

"Bonus Tracks For Japan"

8 Wide World Version

9 Unclear

New Age Steppers, like many On-U Sound "bands" from the early years of the label, featured a rolling roster of the musicians and vocalists working with producer Adrian Sherwood at the time. The center of the group's orbit though was Ari Up, fresh from her years singing for the Slits as they dove from the punk platform at the end of the 1970s into the noisy dub, reggae, and funk experiments that christened the 80s. In 1981, when Action Battlefield was first released, Adrian Sherwood and his On-U label were a critical meeting place for the UK's Jamaican expats and the best of the post punk scene.

New Age Steppers featured Ari Up's warbling vocals alongside other post punk refugees: Mark Stewart of the Pop Group, Keith Levene from PIL and the very earliest incarnation of the Clash, a teenage Neneh Cherry, Sean Oliver of the great Rip Rig & Panic, drummer Bruce Smith and more. Sherwood's studio brought them into a mix with artists that had both real credibility in the reggae music scene and a willingness to experiment into styles far beyond. Singer Bim Sherman, Style Scott (brilliant drummer from the Roots Radics in JA and Dub Syndicate in the UK), guitarist Crucial Tony, George Oban who played bass for Aswad and Burning Spear, etc. Within a few years, On-U Sound would be bringing even more influences from funk, dance and the best of New York's disco and early hip hop sounds and musicians into their multi-racial/genre/nation audio mess. It would be hard for me to overstate the impact it had when my friend Fred gave me a copy of the first New Age Steppers album as a teenager. My musical taste found a home: On-U Sound releases and other Adrian Sherwood productions came to take up more shelf space among my records and CDs than any other single grouping you could come up with.

The other day I was thinking how easy it is for reggae today to be heard as some kind of nostalgia act, strummed guitars and Rasta cliches making for a simple, retro roots cartoon. Bleh. It's easy to forget- this was sci-fi music. Guys like Jammy and Tubby were soldering together the future of recording, remixing and production in their workshops and studios. Reggae had already been thoroughly modern and rebellious, but it was about to go even further: Don Carlos would be asking you to Pass Me The Lazer Beam, Scientist would Meet Space Invaders, Encounter Pac-Man, and team up with Prince Jammy (plus Luke Skywalker, Buck Rogers, and Mr. Spock) to Strike Back... 

That strain of reggae futurism is on full display on Action Battlefield, the second album by New Age Steppers. Released in 1981 and despite being full of covers of classic reggae cuts from the previous decade, the back cover still bore the legend "A 1991 ON-U SOUND CREATION." Like other early On-U Sound releases, Sherwood and company dated this record 10 years as if they weren't just using the studio to push meters into the red but to actually bringing us time travel rhythms from the future. Did I mention that I love this stuff?

Exploding drums, guitar that must have been played by psychedelic robots, electronics and effects, but all held down by recognizably reggae basslines and rhythms. The album features songs originally recorded by Bim Sherman, Michael Rose, the Heptones, B.B. Seaton and Horace Andy, including a cover of My Whole World (as featured in the previous post). This post is taken from a 2004 Japanese CD reissue that's worth the effort to hunt down. It sounds great and includes 2 bonus tracks, excellent dub versions of the NAS covers of My Whole World by Bim Sherman and the Heptone's My Guiding Star. I really hope you enjoy. Sure to be lots more On-U Sound, New Age Steppers and more Bim Sherman in our future.