Audio Active were a Japanese

reggae fusion Reggae fusion is a genre of reggae that mixes reggae and/or dancehall with other genres, such as pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, jazz, funk, soul, disco, electronic and latin. Origin Although artists have been mixing reggae with other genres from a ...

band who released several albums between the early 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century.

History

Audio Active were one of the most successful reggae fusion bands to come out of Japan, and were formed in 1987, originally being a solo project of singer Masa. It later stretched out to be a full band in 1991, when 2DD, Shigemoto Nanao and bassist Takeshi Akimoto all joined.Bush, John " Audio Active Biography, ''

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

'', Macrovision CorporationAudio Active Bio
, On-U Sound Masa had listened to reggae since he was a teenager, and had played (with 2DD) in the ska band Vital Connection, before taking his love of

roots reggae Roots reggae is a subgenre of reggae that deals with the everyday lives and aspirations of Africans and those in the African Diaspora, including the spiritual side of Rastafari, black liberation, revolution and the honoring of God, called Jah b ...

and

dub music Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican r ...

and forming Audio Active, named after an album by

Dennis Bovell Dennis Bovell (born 22 May 1953Huey, Steve"Dennis Bovell Biography" Allmusic. Retrieved 27 December 2014.) is a Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer, based in England. He was a member of the British reggae band Mat ...

.Larkin, Colin (1998) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, , p.16

Adrian Sherwood Adrian Maxwell Sherwood (born 20 January 1958, London, England) is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing techniqu ...

began working with the band in 1992, and produced many of their recordings. The band's debut album ''The