MUSIC

MUSIC Denise Sherwood’s dad helped shape This Road

by Steve Newton

Denise Sherwood didn’t have a typical childhood. Growing up as the daughter of legendary U.K. dub-reggae producer Adrian Sherwood, she heard a lot more music than most kids do.

“Always music, always,” Sherwood recalls on the line from her North London home, “and people working in the studio. It was very normal to come home after school and be surrounded by music and musicians and lots of funny sounds. It was lovely.

“It could also get a bit chaotic,” she adds, “as they’d work late all the time. When I got older, I’d realize that other people don’t have that. When they go home, they have a sort of quiet, do homework, go to bed. With me, it was a party every night.”

Now 36—and eight months pregnant with her second child—the Japanese-British singer-songwriter is promoting This Road, an album produced and mixed by her father and featuring contributions by Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mala, Mark Stewart, Skip McDonald, and Doug Wimbish. It’s her debut album, and it was a long time coming.

“I started singing when I was 16, 17,” she explains, “but I had really bad anxiety, and it took me a long time to work through my own kind of mental-health struggles. I mean, I had chronic anxiety, and so I just couldn’t get up on a stage and sing. I had to walk a different road, completely. It took me about 10 years until I could really function and manage the anxiety and work through it. I wasn’t in a place to finish the record and release it until last year.”

A potent showcase for Sherwood’s eloquent vocals and her father’s renowned recording skills, the 11-track This Road blends dub-reggae, trip-hop, jungle, jazz, drum ’n’ bass, and pop elements to create a sound that she admits is “not the easiest thing to listen to”.

“I kinda like it because it’s unique,” she says, “and I think there’s a real mix. I mean, I love old English poetry; I always have. I love folk music. And I love good songs. But I also love dub and jungle and just playing with weird sounds. It was really just playing with stuff and trying to get a feeling.

“And then I got the chance to work with different people and some of it just turned into drum ’n’ bass, where I wouldn’t originally have wanted that. But there was a lot of being open to letting other people come and put their spin on what I’d put forward as a kind of shell. And then it became like a collage.”

Now, for Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival, This Road has been adapted as a short film, “Dub This Road”, to be presented as a preview version of TAIKOPERA—an experimental concept fusion of taiko drumming and contemporary opera. Curated, produced, and directed by Vancouver’s Don Chow, the project features the all-women drum groups Sawagi Taiko and Onibana Taiko and incorporates sound design by Adrian Sherwood. According to the festival website, the project is “a risky synthesis, a multidisciplinary meditation, which expands and connects diverse cultural perspectives and Asian Canadian histories”.

“I don’t really know what they’re doing with it,” Sherwood admits. “That’s Don’s project, so it’s up to him to create as he sees fit. I think my father’s doing a remix of a track that they’re using with the Japanese drummers. I’ve done the album and they’ll take it and do what they want with it.”

Sherwood—who grew up loving artists like Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Marley and later on was inspired by bands like Portishead and Massive Attack—released This Road on her father’s famed On-U Sound label. Working so closely with him on the project was like a dream come true.

“He’s my pal,” she says, “and we hung out and had wine and stayed up late. He’s very kind and very patient and very encouraging of me—as a father, you know, and as a woman—and just said, ‘Look, let’s get some stuff to go. Don’t worry about it; you don’t have to get on a stage. Let’s just have fun; don’t try to be anybody you’re not. If people like it, then great; if they don’t, who cares.’ He’s so relaxed about everything.”

Looking back on her father’s lengthy and impressive résumé as a producer and remixer, Sherwood points to his earlier work with acts like Tackhead and African Head Charge as most impressive in her books.

“He’s responsible for really creating a new route for U.K. underground music,” she states, “because he was working with so many different sounds in reggae and punk and dub and kind of made his own thing.”

When asked to pinpoint what she feels are her dad’s best qualities in the studio, Sherwood instantly homes in on one.

“He’s completely nonjudgmental,” she replies. “I think he’s the least judgmental human being I’ve ever met, really. Very inclusive and loving. His quality is that anybody could sit in a room with him and feel free to be as they are. And I think that is a massive quality and a very important one as a producer. I think that’s his special gift.” g

Denise Sherwood (right) shares a laugh with her father, famed reggae-dub producer Adrian Sherwood, whose nonjudgmental outlook she adores. Photo by Denise Sherwood Facebook.

I had chronic anxiety, so I just couldn’t get up on a stage and sing.

– Denise Sherwood

“Dub This Road (TAIKOPERA)” will be presented online as part of the Powell Street Festival, which features online and on-location events throughout July, culminating on July 31 and August 1.

that uses cream cheese but is lighter than New York cheesecake and baked in a bain-marie, or water bath.

Vancouver resident Lauren King happened to fall in love with this variety of cheesecake when she lived in Japan for a summer, and the recent UBC commerce grad decided to turn that passion into a part-time business this year with a pop-up bakery for the soufflé-style dessert.

King’s bakery is called Kekko, she told the Straight by phone, and she utilizes a Laurel Street commissary, where she bakes her preordered cakes (she said she sells “dozens” every week) for a couple of days before Saturday pickups.

“Kekko is a Japanese word that has multiple meanings, depending on the context,” King said. “It can be used for very and quite, as in ‘very tasty’.”

While in Japan for a product-marketing internship in Tokyo, King became fond of snack-size cheesecakes sold from a shopping-centre kiosk and variety stores, but she had also heard of a much-loved brand called Uncle Rikuro. She became determined to search out “a quite popular location for this type of cheesecake” that she had heard of.

When she finally did, she said, she was not disappointed.

“If I recall, it was very warm and very soft when it was served, and they made it in front of you,” she said. “And, yes, it was very delicious.”

King said her cakes can be eaten cold or warm, but she advises her customers to briefly heat them in a microwave. “That allows it to be fluffier, and it helps the eggs and butter come out a bit more.”

She makes them in three flavours: plain, Earl Grey, and the aforementioned Philippines ube style (with an occasional boba-milk version in the mix). “Those flavours I enjoy in other desserts,” King explained, “so I really like them to come through in the Japanese cheesecake.”

Although she said that some of her earlier versions of the tricky recipe might have “tasted something like muffins”, she has perfected the process for her customers now. “I like making something that people enjoy; it’s very gratifying when people come back and tell you how much they enjoyed the cakes.”

And sometimes, she said, she might get a bit too fond of her own baking. “I may or may not have eaten a major part of a cake once.” g

Preorders must be made at the Kekko website (kekkobakery.com, until mid-August only) starting Tuesdays at noon, until midnight Friday. Pickups are every Saturday; address and hours are on the site’s Contact page.