Jeb Loy Nichols reunites with pal Adrian Sherwood for latest album

Apparently, Jeb Loy Nichols' new album The United States Of The Broken Hearted has been 40 years in the making. 

 

Here's the scoop...

Produced by On-U Sound mainman Adrian Sherwood, with careful arrangements framing twelve beautiful, acoustic-based songs, the new Jeb Loy Nichols album The United States Of The Broken Hearted features contributions from Martin Duffy (Primal Scream/Felt) and Ivan “Celloman” Hussey, fresh from his work on the massively acclaimed duo of Horace Andy albums, Midnight Rocker and Midnight Scorchers, both of which featured songwriting contributions from Jeb Loy.

Says Jeb Loy: "The United States Of The Broken Hearted has been forty years in the making. I’ve known Adrian, and considered him one of my closest friends, for that long. During that time we’ve spent more hours listening, and talking about, music than anything else. Reggae, Country, Folk, Jazz, Soul; it’s been the backdrop to our friendship. Adrian introduced me to some of my favourite music; Count Ossie, Culture, Harry Beckett, Mulatu Astatke. Through the years we’ve listened to Sun Ra, Lee Perry, Ornette Coleman, Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie. A couple years ago, on a visit to Adrian, I mentioned Gram Parsons’s concept of ‘American Cosmic Music’, the melting mix of musical genres that constitutes a uniquely American sound. We talked about recording a record that incorporated all the influences I’d gathered, from Bluegrass to Jazz to Reggae to Soul. The United States Of The Broken Hearted is that record. We wanted to include Folk (Deportees), Country (Satisfied Mind), protest songs (I Hate The Capitalist System), and songs of my own that bore the marks of those that had gone before. I sang the songs and played guitar; Adrian brought in friends and fellow travellers to finish them. It’s all there, Soul, Jazz, Country, Folk; and underlying everything, Adrian’s Reggae infused production.”

Adrian Sherwood adds: “This is Jeb’s ‘Great American Songbook’, he’s become such a great singer and songwriter over the years. This is a beautiful piece of work reminiscent of our mutual love for the Miracle album I made with Bim Sherman. I’m really proud of this record and it’s a fitting follow-up to Long Time Traveller.”

The first single taken from the album, “Big Troubles Come In Through A Small Door”, comes accompanied by a striking video shot by Jackson Mount, who recently made a short film about Jeb Loy, documenting his art making in an isolated part of rural Wales. For this song, they went to the Abergavenny Sports and Social Club and enlisted the help of local line dancing troupe The Rhinestone Cowgirls, coming up with a coordinated routine for the track.

More about Jeb Loy Nichols

Jeb Loy Nichols is a musician, writer and artist who has, for the past twenty years, lived on a remote smallholding in the Welsh hills. Born in Wyoming and raised in Missouri, he went to New York City at the age of seventeen where he worked in a record store and fell in love with the emerging hip-hop culture. 

In the early 1980s he moved to London where he shared a squat with Ari Up from The Slits and made the acquaintance of Adrian Sherwood, at that time starting his record label On-U Sound. Jeb Loy (with his then backing band the Oil Wells) contributed a track to early On-U Sound compilation Wild Paarty Sounds, and twenty-nine years later (!) finally made his first album for the label, the country-reggae hybrid Long Time Traveller, described by one writer as "like Lee Hazlewood if he'd made an album with The Wailers”. 

In the 1990s he formed the country-dub band Fellow Travellers, who recorded five CDs and toured extensively in Germany. He has since gone on to record fifteen solo records, his most recent album Jeb Loy was released by Finnish soul label Timmion in 2021. He has also published three novels and exhibited his distinctive woodcut artwork internationally. 

Jeb Loy Nichols' The United States Of The Broken Hearted is available via Bandcamp right here. Check out "Big Troubles Come In Through A Small Door" and his Under The Willow Tree live session following a short film by Jackson Mount below. 

More about Adrian Sherwood

“Someone once described me as just a fan who’d got his hands on a mixing desk, They were probably trying to be nasty, but I took it as a compliment – that’s exactly what I am!”

For over 40 years now, forward-thinking sound scientist and mixologist Adrian Sherwood has been dubbing it up, keeping the faith when others have fallen away and blowing minds and speakers alike.

Producer, remixer, and proprietor of the British dub collective/record label On-U Sound, Adrian Sherwood has long been regarded as one of the most innovative and influential artists in contemporary dance and modern reggae music. His talent for creating musical space, suspense, sensations and textures have enabled him to pioneer a distinctive fusion of dub, rock, reggae and dance that challenges tradition not only in roots circles, but also in the pop world at large.

“I’d rather try and create a niche amongst like-minded people, and create our own little market place be that 5, 50 or 500,000 sales and also be true to our principles of making things, and to your own spirit that you put into the work.”

Born in 1958, Sherwood first surfaced during the mid ’70s and formed On-U Sound in 1981. While the On-U Sound crew’s original focus was on live performances, the emphasis soon switched to making records and Sherwood began mixing and matching lineups, resulting in new acts including New Age Steppers, African Head Charge, Mark Stewart & Maffia, and Doctor Pablo & the Dub Syndicate.

All of these early records, according to Rock: The Rough Guide were “phenomenal, generally bass-heavy with outlandish dubbing from Sherwood, who worked the mixing desk as an instrument in itself.”

Long influential and innovative on the UK reggae scene, Sherwood’s distinctive production style soon began attracting interest from acts outside of the dub community and by the early-’80s Sherwood was among the most visible producers and remixers around, working on tracks for artists as varied as Depeche Mode, Primal Scream, Einsturzende Neubaten, Simply Red, the Woodentops, and Ministry. He became increasingly involved in industrial music as the decade wore on, producing tracks for Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails, and although On-U Sound continued to reflect its leader’s eclectic tastes, the label remained a top reggae outlet.

In 2003 he launched his solo artist career with Never Trust a Hippy, which was followed in 2006 by Becoming a Cliché. Both were released by On-U in conjunction with the Real World label.

Still one of the most sought-after producers in the contemporary music industry, Adrian Sherwood and his progressive style and interest in developing new ideas continue to propel On-U Sound’s ongoing success. In 2012 he issued his third solo album Survival & Resistance, and began an ongoing collaboration with Bristol-based dubstep don Pinch. This brought two different generations of bass together and in 2015 the pair released their debut album Late Night Endless. Behind the mixing desk he has been working with the likes of Spoon, Roots Manuva and Nisennenmondai; and delivered remixes of Halsey, Congo Natty and Django Django. His production and remix works has also begun to be anthologised by On-U Sound with the critically acclaimed Sherwood At The Controls series.

“Music is lovely because it stimulates people, superficial music doesn’t. If you make something that you put your heart and soul into and really try to push it so it leaps out the speakers at you, and if there’s a good feel to it, then you’ve achieved something.”