Bill Laswell, a discussion thread of sorts

old gregg

I've been listening to some of the Bill Laswell and Pete Namlook material of late and reading up a little about the man on wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Laswell

This guy is quite the prolific cross genre character. Thinking about it, you could start this thread in almost any of the music forums (but I aint posted here in awhile so figured this is best )

Anyone any thoughts/opinions/etc on Bill Laswell and his musical contributions?

Dizraeligears

Love Psychonavigation-got the original when it came out.and the Bob Marley remixed album.Hes put out a staggering amount of material over the years hasnt he?Thought youd get more of a response old gregg for such a seminal figure!

old gregg

yep the Psychonavigation stuff is pretty excellent. Though I'd be pretty familiar with Namlook I've never taken time to explore Laswell. It was only while performing at a festival recently that someone came up to me at the end of my show and suggested that I'd enjoy Psychonavigation and they were right.

I suppose Laswell is difficult to work out where to start from. I'd have figured there to be more interest in his work on this forum but apparently not.

rottenhat

Well, I'm more or less down with Last Exit and Painkiller, and I'd probably like Massacre if I heard them, but to be honest, he churned out so much dub-fusion drivel during the 90s that I tend to shy away from anything that has his name on it. Fusion isn't always a dirty word but with Laswell it generally seems like what he's putting together is less than the sum of the constituent parts. Crossing genres is not a virtue in itself.

What I've heard by Material has left me cold and I don't like his production work (check out the two versions of Army Arrangement by Fela Kuti and tell me you like his one better).

Eh, so basically I'm saying I don't mind listening to albums by the likes of John Zorn, Sonny Sharrock and Peter Brotzmann where Laswell plays bass but when he's taking the helm I run for cover.

old gregg

Fusion is nearly always a dirty word with me hence the reason why I've avoided Laswell till now. I'd agree pretty much with everything you've said there rottenhat. I suppose along the way I'm hoping to discover a handful of gems and the Namlook collaborations I've heard have yet to spew into Fusion, though if they do I'll be gone