Bill Laswell
Over the course of some three decades, visionary bassist-producer Bill Laswell has been one of the most prolific and restlessly creative forces in contemporary music. A sound conceptualist who has always been a step ahead of the curve, he has put his inimitable stamp on nearly 3,000 recording projects by such artists as Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Bootsy Collins, Nine Inch Nails, Motorhead, Peter Gabriel, Blur, The Ramones, George Clinton, Pharaoh Sanders, The Dalai Lama, Matisyahu, Angelique Kidjo, DJ Krush, RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, Sting, The Last Poets, Afrika Bambaataa, Julian Schnabel, Whitney Houston, Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti and most notably Herbie Hancock, who collaborated with Laswell for the pivotal 1983 smash-hit single Rock-It which introduced scratching to the mainstream, inspired a generation of turntablists and gave the great jazz pianist instant street credibility among the burgeoning hip-hop cognoscenti.
Laswell's sense of creative daring as a producer was further demonstrated on several recordings that have kept him on the cutting edge, including Afrika Bambaataa's collaboration with John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame) on World Destruction and PiL's Album (which brought together an unlikely pairing of drumming greats Ginger Baker and Tony Williams, synth-pop pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame and rising guitar star Steve Vai). His spoken word collaborations with William S. Burroughs and expatriate writer-composer Paul Bowles have gone against the grain of music industry trends while his radical remixes (or re-constructions) of landmark recordings by Miles Davis (Panthalassa), Carlos Santana (Divine Light), Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom) and a vast scan of dub-related and atmospheric ambient projects have gone on to further defined Laswell’s presence as a revolutionary ikonoklast.
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Album Review
- The Cleansing by Nenad Georgievski
- Fractal Guitar 2 - Remixes by Mark Sullivan
- Sacred Ceremonies by Karl Ackermann
Live Review
Live From New York
Album Review
- Dubopera by C. Michael Bailey
Interview
Rediscovery
Album Review
- Tennessee 2004 by Chris M. Slawecki
- Subharmonic In Dub by Chris M. Slawecki
April 09, 2019
Sonar's The Bill Laswell Mix Translations To Be Released On Limited...
April 17, 2015
M.O.D. Technologies To Release Hu Vibrational's The Epic Botanical Beat...
November 23, 2014
Akira Sakata, Pete Cosey, Hamid Drake, Bill Laswell - Two Releases Out...
October 23, 2014
Jon Batiste, Chad Smith, Bill Laswell - M.O.D. Technologies Releases...
June 04, 2014
Bill Laswell's M.O.D. Technologies Presents Helio Parallax Featuring A...
November 04, 2013
Produced By Bill Laswell, Mumpbeak, Self-Titled Debut On Rarenoise...
September 04, 2012
Invasion Group In Collaboration With Innerhythmic Records To Issue...
December 15, 2011
Raoul Bjorkenheim, Bill Laswell and Morgan Agren - Blixt (2011)
November 11, 2011
Raoul Bjorkenheim, Bill Laswell, Morgan Agren - Blixt (Cuneiform, 2011)...
October 15, 2011
Bill Laswell, Raoul Bjorkenheim and Morgan Agren - Blixt (Cuneiform,...
Photos
Albums
Social Justice – A Fire for Reimagining the World
From: Sacred CeremoniesBy Bill Laswell