Horace Andy Midnight Rocker LP (Transparent Red Vinyl)

10 brand-new recordings from the legendary Jamaican singer and longtime Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy, produced by Adrian Sherwood.

Midnight Rocker has been approached in a similar fashion to the late-career quality that Sherwood coaxed out of Lee "Scratch" Perry with the Rainford and Heavy Rain albums, assembling a crack team of players and spending many months perfecting performance, arrangements and mixing. The result is a remarkable suite of tracks that sparkle with superb musicianship, carefully crafted production and Horace's beautiful vocals.

The material includes revisiting and updating a few classic Horace Andy songs such as "Mr. Bassie," but the bulk of the tracks are brand-new compositions with contemporary messages, such as "Watch Over Them" and "Materialist." The pair have also versioned "Safe From Harm," a much-loved early single by the group that Andy is most associated with - Massive Attack.

"On-U Sound are very proud to present a truly wonderful album with one of the all-time great singer-songwriters in the rich history of Jamaican music, Horace Andy. This is a true gold star performance, and I'm very proud of it." -Adrian Sherwood

Midnight Rocker benefits from thoughtful song selection and Sherwood's restrained but personality-heavy production, but at the center of it all is Andy's unmistakable voice. The quiet intensity, supernatural control, and disquieting character of his singing are all in full focus, adding mystery and longing to even the most benign lyric and making the highlights of Midnight Rocker rank among his best work.

Sherwood generally sticks to a synth-heavy sound that calls up memories of '80s classics from Burning Spear but jumps into a dubby mode throughout and even helps cook up a sizzling cover of Massive Attack's 'Safe From Harm.' Andy stays steady and tuneful no matter what gets thrown at him, sounding much younger and more spry than his age (71) would suggest.