Rainford
Released
Adrian Sherwood (of the mighty On-U Sound label) and Lee “Scratch” Perry (of the legendary Black Ark studio) is a match made in heaven — assuming that your idea of heaven is a place where reggae music gets stripped to its essentials and then radically remixed. Released only a couple of years prior to Perry’s death at age 85, Rainford was their final collaborative project, and definitely one of the best. The instrumental backing tracks that Sherwood provides partake of his typically dark and heavyweight sound but also incorporate samples from Perry’s deep vault of recordings from the Black Ark. Perry declaims and chats, while the rhythms roar and skank. (And don’t miss Heavy Rain, the dub version of this album.)