Little Axe - Hard Grind

The first vinyl edition of Little Axe’s 2002 album, the blues-rooted project of guitarist Skip McDonald. A founding figure of The Sugarhill Gang, Tackhead and a key player in the On-U Sound story, McDonald reshaped Delta blues through echo, haze and dub production, with Adrian Sherwood providing smoky atmospherics and looping textures.

The result is a hazy, time-bending record of ghostly voices, sultry rhythms and understated but devastating guitar work, once described by AllMusic’s Thom Jurek as “a dreamy, hazy cipher… a heavily seductive mix that slithers around McDonald’s awesome and understated guitar playing.”