GARY CLAIL/ON-U SOUND SYSTEM
Emotional Hooligan

I was giving a quick listen to the second volume of a collection of Adrian Sherwood's works (Sherwood at the Controls - Volume 2: 1985–1990) just released and, surprised to find a track by the Florentine band Pankow (I didn't know their pieces had been treated by the ON-U Sound boss), I realized I was disappointed by the lack of a Gary Clail track.

With all the wonders that have passed through Sherwood's hands, from Mark Stewart's records to Tackhead, from Bin Sherman to Dub Syndicate, not to mention African Head Charge (who bewitched me with that then-unheard hybrid of dub echoes and shamanic vocations, African tribalism and technology, which after the more challenging experimentalism of their early records, condensed its magic in “Songs Of Praises” and “In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land”), well with all those wonders, I said to myself, is it really Gary Clail who comes to mind?

Yes, indeed, him and that very album, with its perfect title and the black cover that says it all, came back to mind.

So this morning I played it in the car, on my way to work. And I found myself turning up the volume, as a voice immersed in the hypnotic dubbed sound ring suggested something about people's basic needs in “Food, Clothes And Shelter”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVZu2KR2MAI the opening track.

And turning it up a bit more, letting it make a poor basic sound system tremble, intimidated by the deep bass and electric slashes as the album progressed.

By the third track, the volume is at its peak and my rowdy nature in its most expressive form: window down, volume blaring, head bobbing out of sync, while the female choir repeats “Escape, there’s no escape” over that killer bass riff (what a sound, it speaks directly to your reproductive system) by Doug Wimbish. “Escape” is the album’s rowdiest and most danceable track, and even today it does its dirty job https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMlaKy2Xuro

Then comes the title track, with its bouncy stride and the monotonous declaiming voice, echoed by what sounds like dog barks used as rhythmic punctuation: another domestic drama in a suburban Hell… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5l-F1jDqI8

As I'm about to park, “Human Nature” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Qg73_lK1A starts playing and I decide against it, despite the scarcity of free parking spots around the office: I have to take another lap, letting the echo, amplified and distorted by the strained system, reiterate Clail's simple yet effective statements, sometimes people do the strangest things… there’s something wrong in human nature… Yes, my old friend, without a doubt, but now let me find another spot for my old banger, we’ll meet again on the way back.

The album, which features contributions from members of the Dub Syndicate, from the aforementioned Wimbish to Skip McDonald, Bin Sherman, and is produced by On-U Sound, was released in 1991 by Perfecto Records. The singles “Beef” (featuring Wobble on bass and Sherman on vocals) and “Human Nature” helped push it into the charts, granting it visibility that the prior, albeit valid, album End Of The Century Party, did not have to the same extent. I saw him live, I believe a couple of years later, in a venue, without a band, singing over the tracks, and it should have disappointed and saddened me, but I had become fond of him and preferred to erase the memory of that evening. I’m not sure what else Gary Clail has done since, nothing memorable I suppose.

But this pulsating blend of dub, funk, electronics with a splash of soul, along with those simple yet highly effective vocal lines, has earned a space in my distorted mind and this morning proved it could still hold it, 25 years on. The rowdy part of me, sister to the romantic one, thanks him, here, publicly.