Following 2024’s Echoes of the Night EP, Michael Hodgson returns with Apply the Dub: four stunning new Adrian Sherwood remixes, this time of his long-running solo project, Misled Convoy.
The EP’s title is a nod to Sherwood’s renowned process in which tracks are not simply remixed, but dismantled, fed into his dub machinery and reimagined. The results are spacious and compelling, epic in scope, rich in detail and loaded with bass.
The prophetic voice of Kat Five (Feral Five) looms large on the opening track, as does Miho Wada’s flute on the last. David “Ital Horns” Fullwood returns to the project, providing trumpet to two of the tunes, while Doug Wimbish (Tack>>Head / Living Colour) adds bass, and Mark Bandola (The Lucy Show) guitar and keys, to a different pair of remixes.
The sessions began in 2025, with the original tracks drawn from the more experimental and industrial side of Misled Convoy, giving Sherwood plenty of room to work with sonically. In his Ramsgate studio, frequencies were pulled apart, bass lines elevated and melodies stretched while sounds disappeared into layers of delay, echo and dub processing before emerging dazed & confused and somewhere else entirely.
Since dub is the compositional glue that fuels Hodgson’s creative dynamic, this collaboration meant reverse engineering his process and stripping his compositions back to the bare bones: “Before we hit the studio, I had to remove a whole lot of my effects to make space for Adrian, which made the track sound empty and super weird, but this is how the magic happens. When you do a remix, you are inviting an artist you respect into your creative process and watch it get reimagined. This is a big part of dub and remix culture.”
Very much a meeting of two complementary approaches to sound, Apply the Dub has Hodgson’s dark and atmospheric electronica enhanced and deeply embellished by Sherwood’s long-established sonic manipulation and dub-mixing.
For Hodgson, the connection with Sherwood and On-U Sound has been life-long, from being a fan in his youth in Aotearoa New Zealand to supporting Patrick Docktor’s archiving of the label’s video and audio collection in London. In 2019 Sherwood invited Hodgson to collaborate with artist Peter Harris to create a visual backdrop to accompany his Time Boom X The Upsetter Dub Sessions tour. Hodgson went on to create videos for On-U’s 40th anniversary celebration at The Forum in London, helped with the immersive 3D Live Dub Experience at Earth Theatre and travelled to Japan for the Collapse of Everything tour where he worked on live video triggering for Sherwood’s shows.
