Bill Laswell
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Bill Laswell | |
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Website | billlaswell |
William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.
According to music critic Chris Brazier, "Laswell's pet concept is 'collision music' which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out."
Career
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Early years
Laswell got his earliest professional experience as a bass guitarist in R&B and funk bands in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. He saw shows that combined genres, such as Iggy and the Stooges, MC5, and Funkadelic. He was also influenced by jazz musicians John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Miles Davis.
New York and Material
In the late 1970s Laswell moved to New York City,
He worked with Brian Eno, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Daniel Ponce, Ginger Baker, Peter Brötzmann, Kip Hanrahan, Sonny Sharrock, and with musicians in no wave, a genre that combined avant-garde jazz, funk, and punk.[3]
He started a recording studio with
In 1982, Laswell released Baselines, his solo debut album. A year later, he had a breakthrough with "Rockit", a song he co-wrote and produced for Herbie Hancock's album Future Shock.[1] He played bass guitar and co-wrote other songs on the album, leading to collaborations with Hancock through the 2000s. He won a Grammy Award for producing Hancock's next album, Sound-System.[1]
He became a member of the band Last Exit in 1986 with Peter Brötzmann, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Sonny Sharrock.[1] Aside from one album that Laswell cobbled together in the studio, the band was primarily a live one, showing up at gigs with no rehearsal. The first time the four members played together was on stage at their first show.
Laswell produced albums for
Running Axiom
Praxis featured guitarist Buckethead on
Funkcronomicon included previously released tracks by Praxis and Skopelitis and tracks with members of Parliament-Funkadelic. George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and the last recordings of Eddie Hazel are featured prominently. The album includes DXT, Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Torture.[5] Laswell remixed the Axiom catalog for Axiom Ambient, blending seemingly disparate tracks, releasing some of the music for Sample Material – International Free Zone, a sample library for other musicians to use as material.[6][7]
Other labels
Subharmonic, conceived by Laswell and ex-Celluloid A&R Robert Soares, though not owned by Laswell, was essentially a vehicle for his projects, most in the ambient or ambient-dub categories. The label licensed a few releases from European labels for American re-release, notably Psychonavigation with Pete Namlook and Cymatic Scan with Tetsu Inoue from Pete Namlook's FAX label; Somnific Flux with Mick Harris and Cold Summer by Lull from the Sentrax label. Other collaborators included Jonah Sharp and Terre Thaemlitz. The label also released albums by Painkiller, Praxis, and Divination, an ambient dub project by Laswell. A sub-label called Strata was created with five releases in a more experimental dub/noise/ambient vein. Each of these releases (Death Cube K, Cypher 7, Azonic, and two under his alias Automaton) came in a black jewel case with the name of the project and album title printed on the front.
Three other short-lived labels were created after the demise of the Subharmonic deal. One was Meta, which was intended to be a spoken word label. The second label, Submeta, managed four releases before folding. Meta, formed with Janet Rienstra, released only one album, Baptism of Solitude with novelist Paul Bowles reading excerpts from his work over soundscapes by Laswell. Meta would appear periodically, distributed by other labels, over the next few years until it returned as a spiritual/yogic label run by Rienstra. The third label, Black Arc, was an associated label of Rykodisc focusing on "Black Rock, Cyber Funk, and Future Blues", according to a sampler. The label featured members of P-Funk on most of the albums and released albums by Bootsy Collins (under the name "Zillatron"), Bernie Worrell (Japan-only), Mutiny (Jerome Brailey), and Billy Bass.
Charged (1999) by Eraldo Bernocchi and Toshinori Kondo was released by Laswell's label Innerythmic. After a brief inactive period, the label restarted in 2001, releasing over the next few years and albums by Nicky Skopelitis, Raoul Björkenheim, James Blood Ulmer, Shin Terai, and Gonervill. Innerhythmic also released a live recording by Praxis and reissued Black Arc albums from the 1990, including Zillatron, The Last Poets' Holy Terror and Buddy Miles' Hell & Back.[8]
Laswell moved his studio to
Laswell has stated in interviews that he met with Miles Davis a number of times and discussed working together, but busy schedules kept them from arranging such a recording before Davis' death.
New century, new labels
He signed a contract with Sanctuary Records that led to the creation of his label Nagual. He worked in the drum and bass genre, starting with Brutal Calling credited to Bill Laswell vs. Submerged that was released by Avant in 2004. He and Submerged worked together again on The Only Way to Go is Down (2006) under the name Method of Defiance. After this album, they assembled producers in drum and bass to collaborate with musicians from jazz. Evol Intent, Future Prophecies, and SPL recorded with Buckethead, Herbie Hancock, and Pharoah Sanders.[1]
In 2010, Laswell created the label M.O.D. Technologies. Its first releases were the albums Jahbulon and Incunabula by Method of Defiance and Mesgana Ethiopia by Material with Gigi.[1]
Along with live dates around the world with Massacre, Material, Method of Defiance, and Painkiller, Laswell travels to Japan every year for recordings and live dates, including with Tokyo Rotation.[12]
In September 2017, Bill Laswell was interviewed by the Data.Wave webzine.[13]
In November 2018, he performed in Dave Douglas Uplift band at the London Jazz Festival.[14]
Collaborators
Laswell works frequently with a small group of collaborators. These include bassists Jah Wobble, Jonas Hellborg, and Bootsy Collins; guitarists Buckethead and Nicky Skopelitis; keyboardists Jeff Bova and Bernie Worrell; percussionists Aïyb Dieng and Karsh Kale, and musicians from P-Funk. Robert Musso has been his chief engineer for over twenty years. Oz Fritz has occasionally filled the role. Fritz is usually Laswell's live engineer of choice, known for live mixing technique. Remixes have been done for Sting, Nine Inch Nails, Almamegretta, Scorn, Ozzy Osbourne, and Tori Amos. He has done much work for John Zorn's Tzadik Records.
In 2005, Laswell was invited to appear on the PBS series Soundstage. The show featured musicians he has played with over the years, including members of Praxis and Tabla Beat Science, Pharoah Sanders, Foday Musa Suso, Bootsy Collins, and Catfish Collins.
Laswell worked with Sony Creative Software on a box set loop library called The Bill Laswell Collection.[15]
He has also worked with Eraldo Bernocchi and Mick Harris on a project called Equations of Eternity, which is an ambient music project started in 1995 by Eraldo. Since its members live in separate parts of the world (Mick Harris in England; Bill Laswell in the US; and Eraldo Bernocchi in Italy), the project has been predominantly studio-based, with its members recording music in their respective countries.
Discography
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ankeny, Jason. "Bill Laswell". AllMusic. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ "The Bill Laswell Pages". Silent-watcher.net. March 22, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ ISBN 1-56159-284-6.
- ^ Greene, Jo-Ann. "Sly & Robbie". AllMusic. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ Axiom Dub: Mysteries of Creation, Hyperreal Archive
- ^ "Bill Laswell Axiom Discography". Music.hyperreal.org. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ "Bill Laswell Discography". www.silent-watcher.net. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ "Raoul Björkenheim's website". Raoulbjorkenheim.com. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- AllMusic
- ^ Life Space Death, album sleeve notes
- ^ "MussoMusic discography". MussoMusic. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved July 10, 2011.
- ^ "Bill Laswell presents Tokyo Rotation". Time Out.
- ^ "Interview for Data.Wave webzine".
- ^ "Jazz Now, Dave Douglas". BBC Radio 3. November 19, 2018. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
- ^ "Sound Series – Loops & Samples". Sony Creative Software. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
External links
- Bill Laswell at AllMusic
- Bill Laswell on Bandcamp
- Bill Laswell discography at Discogs
- Bill Laswell discography at MusicBrainz
- Official Silent Watcher site