Laswell, Bill

Artist: Bill Laswell
P: 1996
Like the title says. This album does a wonderful job of conveying these vibes. Dark and massive.
Each of the 16 tracks on this album has something diferent to offer. The Terre Thaemlitz track, as expected, vibrates the house with its deep bass rumbles. The Tetsu Inoue and MJ Harris collaborations and the two Laswell solo's are my other highlights of a satisfying 'Ambient' entree.

Enter the 'Ambient, Bass and Drums' disc. The two Laswell solos are again highlights, along with the Jah Wobble and Jeff Bova, Automaton and Jonah Sharp collaborations. This second CD is great chillout music, good for sitting in the sun and drinking something cool - the sky seems bluer, the trees seem greener, the birdsong sweeter!

Artist: Bill Laswell
P: 1988
This marked one of the truly world fusion creations. "To realize Hear No Evil, bassist/super-producer Bill Laswell tapped a group of world-class musicians. The divergent virtuosity of such aces as violinist L. Shankar, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, and percussionist Aiyb Dieng blend seamlessly under the leader's acute sense of direction. 'Assassin' hints of near-Eastern desolation á la Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir,' but most of the album follows the rustic grooves of 'Lost Roads'.

Artist: Bill Laswell
P: 1988
This marked one of the truly world fusion creations. "To realize Hear No Evil, bassist/super-producer Bill Laswell tapped a group of world-class musicians. The divergent virtuosity of such aces as violinist L. Shankar, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, and percussionist Aiyb Dieng blend seamlessly under the leader's acute sense of direction. 'Assassin' hints of near-Eastern desolation á la Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir,' but most of the album follows the rustic grooves of 'Lost Roads'.
Here the Virgin label version!

Artist: Bill Laswell
P: 1995
Two thirds of PAIN KILLER create a brace of minimal mood pieces, sparse & dark. Much along the lines of HARRIS's LULL project. The first piece, "Distal Sonority", wastes no time to fill the space in your room. Probably more akin to the second LULL album, it depends more on a shapeless drifting, floating sound than on any obvious structure. It's like opening a door onto another planet, moving from familiar 'Earth' logic to unexpected and unpredictably unknown measures in one step. The half-hidden shapes within the misty drift move quickly - unlike the graceful somnambulistic ghosts of HARRIS's solo work. An understated central loop lulls, reminding one of a much more passive take on the FRIPP / ENO experiments. But overall, despite the dread dark of the piece, it has a tranquility which lures you further and further into deep dreamscapes until you almost feel compelled to let go and fall into slumber, which is around the time at which it ends and the duo bring you "Capacious". Beginning harder, to pull you out of the soporific state you may have drifted into, it soon settles down into that dark world between reality and nightmare which worked so well for many of the "Murder Ballads" tracks - a place where unease and disquiet stalk the listener, with evil intent - a Dream State where all the denizens are Psycho Killers, and digging shallow pits at midnight is a national pastime. Sometimes it reminds me of the Cthulhu nightmares of CONTRASTATE, often of a darker take on CZUKAY / SYLVIAN's collaborations.

Artist: Bill Laswell
P: 2013
John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Yoshida Tatsuya. John Zorn and Bill Laswell are two of the downtown scene's most consistently intrepid musical explorers, and PainKiller, formed in 1991 is their longest running project together. The Prophecy, the first official PainKiller release in over ten years, was recorded live in Europe in 2004 5 and pulls together music from several concerts into a powerful and mind blowing suite unlike anything the group has ever released before. Featuring master drummer Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins, Korekyojin) who has worked with Zorn and Laswell off and on since the mid '80s, the music takes on a mercurial, unpredictable edge. One epic hour long suite surrounded by two short hardcore blasts of searing intensity, The Prophecy is music of great mystical power from one of the most unique sax-bass-drums trios ever assembled.

Artist: Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell
P: 1996 / 2002
AW 025
From a voyage to Africa Bill Laswell brought with him two things: Some DATs full with material for an Ethnic oriented collaboration and - a *cold*. After a day with Bill in the studio coughing his way through the recording sessions Pete felt that he had the cold as well...a strange virus and nobody was safe from it...within days the whole FAX environment had a cold and so the whole production process was slowed down. This influenced this Electronic Sonata as there was automatically "more time" to re-listen to the elements being used and FABiA Kuhlmann had her recording debut with a nadhaswaram intro. This virus was special... in the evening you felt like Dark Ambient at 0.5 BPM and in the morning nothing could be energetic enough...a quite different and vivid music found its way to the CD. African and Indian music on and off...beats on and off...monochrome soundscapes...quite a virus...

Artist: Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell
P: 2007
PW 51
LTD 500
Bill and Pete joined their forces to create an innovative continuation of their project which combine a lot of different music sources like Dub, Ethnic, SciFi, Electronica etc... Very deep/dark with a lot of percussion and bass, african and arabesque elements that will bring your Stereo and Surround System to its limits. The main theme of this intense music is the origin.

Artist: Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell
P: 2003
MP3 003
LTD: 1000
The third MP3 - CD on FAX and still no other label in the electronica/Chill-Out and Ambient scene has released this kind of product.
We love to sell innovative products..
Again the length of the CD is around 5 hours at highest MP3 quality. This project has a certain development from the start in 1993 through 2002 (Psychonavigaton 5) which makes it an ideal candidate for an MP3 release.
From mysterious Dub-Ambient to early Trip-Hop and Ethno-Dub-Trance Fusion.. always ahead of its time and with two masters of the genre.
This release gives you the real Psycho-Navigation while listening to it.. enough said.. the music speaks for itself.
All the original CD releases are sold out. So this *is* a collectors item encoded at the highest possible rate 320kbps.

Artist: Pete Namlook, Klaus Schulze & Bill Laswell
P: 1997/ 2003
AW 029
After Pete moved to his new studio the choice was easy which project would be the first to start a new era in FAX production with. Klaus Schulze was asked and didn`t hesitate to come to the small town at the Mosel river (144 KM away from Peter`s homebase Frankfurt). The recording sessions took place and the features (as well as the difficulties) of a new studio created a life on their own. What came out is a recording that shows the aspects of vintage space music combined with the innovations of today to a further creation of Electronic Fusion Music.

Artist: Pete Namlook, Klaus Schulze & Bill Laswell
P: 1998/ 2004
AW 032
Pushing the limits, Klaus and Peter combined 70ies Space Music with the new (old) school Electro sounds. Part III of this CD features Bill Laswell whose ethno-oriented sounds add perfectly to this space music opus.
Listening to this music is like watching a movie... just close your eyes and find out yourself... we take you with us on a journey through the universe of sounds to our musical world.

Artist: Robert Musso & Bill Laswell = Transonic
P 1994
PS 08/67
LTD: 1000
The follow up album to the first Transonic CD which was also out on FAX. The new album reminds of the first one but is even deeper and more spacy. Also it is more ambient oriented and contains less beats. Bill Laswell plays the bass again.