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The Master Musicians Of Jajouka & Material: Apocalypse Live
by Martin Longley
This is another entry for M.O.D.'s new download-only Digital Incunabula series, which concentrates on live recordings from the Bill Laswell vaults. Here's a Jajouka/Material set from 2015's Gent Jazz Festival in Belgium, a performance actually witnessed by your scribe. The five-piece Jajouka Sufi trance contingent (from the eponymous mountain village in Morocco) are led by Bachir Attar, a longtime collaborator with Western experimenters, mostly as a consequence of his work with producer and bassist Laswell. The Jajouka introduce ...
Continue ReadingAdam Rudolph's Moving Pictures: Glare of the Tiger
by Mark Corroto
Back in the late 1960s/early 70s, maybe we weren't ready for it. The Beatles explored psychedelia and Indian music, as did a plugged-in Miles Davis. Then came John McLaughlin's Shakti, Don Cherry, Yusef Lateef, and Joe Zawinul's Weather Report, to name a few heads of state. The music they played, which now might be filed under 'World Music,' was not meant to be ghettoized as such. Miles would have just called it “m-f'ing music." Maybe we should, too.
Continue ReadingSonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages
by Chris M. Slawecki
In 1994, guitarist Sonny Sharrock died from a sudden heart attack at age 53, leaving behind a body of cutting-edge jazz guitar compositions and recordings that still sounds ahead of its time.Ask the Ages (1991, Island), Sharrock's last official release, literally was one for the ages, recorded with an amazing quartet which teamed the guitarist with bassist Charnett Moffett and two powerhouse musicians greatly influenced by the sturm und drang of John Coltrane, drummer Elvin Jones and reedman ...
Continue ReadingMasahiro Shimba & Bill Laswell: Dubopera
by C. Michael Bailey
Recently, researchers with the Ligo Collaboration reported that they had detected gravitational waves (predicted by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity 100 years ago) resulting from the collision between two black holes a billion years ago. Bassist and provocateur Bill Laswell has made a career of doting the same thing with musical genre, creating new and different forms with lasting consequences. Most notable has been Laswell's application of Dub, an electronic progeny of Reggae, to different styles of music ...
Continue ReadingSonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages
by C. Michael Bailey
Guitarist Sonny Sharrock had been recording since 1969, in a variety of formats. In 1991, he recorded his masterpiece, Ask the Ages for Axiom records. The recording was produced by Sharrock and MOD Technologies founder and bassist Bill Laswell. Axiom Records was a precursor to Laswell's MOD Technologies. It is fitting that Laswell resurrect Sharrock's magnum opus recorded the year before the guitarist's death. Much has been made of Sharrock making music with former John Coltrane sidemen Pharoah ...
Continue ReadingHu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite
by John Ephland
Uniquely atmospheric, this music evokes both the mysterious jungle as well as what it might be like to listen in space, outer space. Hu Vibrational Presents The Epic Botanical Beat Suite points to both the inner as well as outer journey. All of it exquisitely tethered by the Beat, or beats, beats that float in and out as if seamlessly emerging from one musician, one mind. That one musician is Adam Rudolph. And yet, this isn't a computer- ...
Continue ReadingHu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite
by Dan Bilawsky
The Epic Botanical Beat Suite--the fourth release from percussionist Adam Rudolph's ever-evolving Hu Vibrational--is a trance-inducing rhythmic trip. Rudolph, the man behind the bulky Go: Organic Orchestra and the Moving Pictures Octet, has always been adept at creating distinct outfits. Hu Vibrational has served as his vehicle for blending African rhythms, minimalistic tides, and electronica-influenced sounds into hypnotic soundscapes. In the past, this mutable band has been a bit heavier in sound yet lighter on personnel. The ...
Continue ReadingThe Process: The Process
by Chris M. Slawecki
The Process is like a radioactive atom that centers and orbits around the futuristic power trio of bassist Bill Laswell, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Jon Batiste, the latest in his family's longstanding line of New Orleans keyboard visionaries. “The original idea was to film unfamiliar musicians playing together in a room with no preconceived direction. Over time it began to transform into making a record," Laswell explains. “Beginning by exploring each other's musicianship, laying ...
Continue ReadingPeter Apfelbaum's Sparkler: I Colored It In For You
by Dan Bilawsky
I Colored It In For You is such a tease. Broad-minded multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum uses this brief EP--the two-part title track and a remix from M.O.D. co-founder Bill Laswell are it--to introduces a sui generis small group known as Sparkler. Apfelbaum, covering vocals, keys, saxophones, and percussion, teams up with rising star trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman, vocalist/saxophone Jill Ryan, grooving guitarist Will Bernard, Barney McAll, playing homemade instruments here, and a pair of drummers--Willard Dyson and Aaron Johnston. ...
Continue ReadingJon Batiste/Chad Smith/Bill Laswell: The Process
by Dan Bilawsky
If anybody saw this coming, they must to be clairvoyant. The Process brings together drummer Chad Smith, the hard-hitting, groove-making force that drives the Red Hot Chili Peppers, pianist Jon Batiste, the oft-cheery personality who bridges the NOLA-New York divide with his crowd-pleasing, accessible brand of jazz, and bassist-producer Bill Laswell, a prolific, genre-blind force with a mile-long list of credits who's straddled and erased the divide between pan-African styles, dub, funk, jazz, various strains of rock, electronica, and avant-garde ...
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