ASHER DUST Nightshift Review

`Master Of None’
(Own label)
Asher Dust has been a thorn in the side of highend production values and general style-oversubstance mediocrity for longer than we can
remember, both in his own right, under myriad
pseudonyms or alongside other local electronic
or hip hop acts. Keeping up with his regular
musical output is akin to herding kittens at times
but now he’s collating much of his work on a
series of compilation albums ahead of the release
of his full debut album later this year.
This fifteen-track compendium may be drawn
from different recording sessions but actually
works well as a cohesive, if maybe slightly
overlong, album, the songs held together by a
shared sense of urgency, which seems to be an
Asher Dust trope, as well as his soulfully roughhewn voice that allows him to switch from ragga
to rap to r’n’b at will without ever sounding
anything less than a natural.
Asher is both rhythmically and vocally
inventive, `Coty Lee’ being a perfect example as
he mixes imaginative use of both into an oddball
whole, while `Shall I Name Names’ is more
scattergun, spraying beats into every corner of
the room as his voice is shrouded in low-level
distortion for an almost industrial feel.
There’s something almost cartoonish about the
jazzy, rapid-fire mania of `Tender Pieces’, like a
speeded-up animation of a comical disaster in a
factory, but it’s testament to the man’s versatility
that it’s immediately followed by the more
languorous piano-led electro-thump of `Trying
To Find My Way Home’.
While Asher is perfectly capable of a more
mainstream r’n’b sound, as shown on `Voices’,
the highlights here come when he hits the other
extreme, the monstrous synth squelch of `Mud
Blud’ and in particular the fidgety, dissonant
industrial bleep of `Tried To Make You Love
Me’.
Despite its length, `Master Of None’ never
feels like it’s carrying any filler. There is fun,
mischief and invention at every turn, a genuinely
individual musician at play, under no pressure
to please anyone but himself. Don’t let the selfeffacing title fool you; in his own musical niche,
Asher Dust is nothing less than a master.

Dale Katack