Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Bill Laswell: Invisible Design
Bill Laswell: Invisible Design
ByThe new solo Laswell record, Invisible Design, marks one of these moments. Unfortunately it's not all that memorable. Like his very similar 1988 record Hear No Evil, the new release displays an excess of introspective redundancy. Laswell's compositions for solo bass on Invisible Design, remarkable in their simplicity, lie buried under layers of reverberant echo, synth textures, and effects. Unfortunately, Invisible Design prizes indulgent self-reference over outright musical content. Simple melodic lines end up shrouded in murky grayness, inevitably collapsing into muddled twiddling. This record, along with Laswell's previous solo work, suffers from a decided lack of clarity.
Track Listing
Black Aether; Commander Guevara; Oceans of Borrowed Money; Aisha; Night Air and Low Frequency; White Arc Spiral; Aghora.
Personnel
Bill Laswell
bassBill Laswell: bass, electronics.
Album information
Title: Invisible Design | Year Released: 1999 | Record Label: Tzadik
Tags
Comments
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Support All About Jazz
