A longtime cornerstone of the New York City underground music scene, bassist, producer, label boss & documenter Mr. Bill Laswell has been among the most prolific artists in contemporary music. As a performer, producer & label chief, his signature is on thousands of albums, including more than 135 of his own starting with 1985’s Baselines, the majority are characterized by a signature sound fusing the energy of post-punk with the bone-rattling rhythms of funk, fusion, & dub. He’s also known for star-studded collaborations, having founded Praxis, Material, and several other groups. Mr. Laswell also records immersive electronic ambient explorations as well as fusions of disparate genres from Indian, Latin, & African music to opera, klezmer, hip-hop, jazz, and many other genres. He released 2022’s Nammu with Ulf Ivarsson, and 2 duo recordings with John Zorn, 2022’s The Cleansing and 2023’s Memoria. Mr. Laswell has been a staple of the downtown New York music scene since the late ’70s when he founded Material, a rotating ensemble whose output ranged from angular art-funk (1981’s Memory Serves) to club-friendly, futuristic electro-pop (One Down). His commercial breakthrough came when he co-wrote & produced Herbie Hancock’s groundbreaking 1983 electro track “Rockit.” Throughout the decades, he has participated in many musical projects as a bassist, including Last Exit, an avant-jazz-rock supergroup, and has produced dozens of records for a staggering array of artists including Mick Jagger, Nona Hendryx, & Iggy Pop. During the ’90s, Laswell founded/ran the Axiom label to release ambient, dub, & electronic outings. He also helmed a series of remix & reconstruction projects, kicked off by the release of Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974. In the early part of the 80’s he explored Indian music with supergroup Tabla Beat Science, and founded futurist drum’n’bass ensembles Method of Defiance with Submerged. Throughout the 2010s and well into the 2020s, he ran M.O.D. Technologies, a genre-defying label that released albums by avant-jazz artists including Milford Graves & Rudresh Mahanthappa, as well as On Common Ground, a power trio with guitarist Mike Sopko & drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Born on February 12, 1955, in Salem, Illinois, he initially played guitar but soon switched to bass. Raised primarily in the Detroit area, he honed his skills in local funk outfits before relocating to New York in 1978. There Laswell formed Material, an outlet for his experimental approach toward sounds ranging from jazz to hip-hop to worldbeat. Originally the backup unit for Daevid Allen, the group soon began working on its own, issuing its debut EP Temporary Music in 1979. While Material’s early work was more esoteric, they soon released more accessible, pop-influenced music, including the club classic “Bustin’ Out” and the full-length One Down, which included one of Whitney Houston’s first lead vocal performances. In addition to fronting Material, Laswell also mounted a solo career, issuing Baselines in 1983 on Celluloid, a label he partly owned and operated. Appearances on key recordings by the likes of David Byrne, John Zorn, Fred Frith, and the Golden Palominos established him as a virtual nexus of the downtown N.Y.C. community and he broke into the mainstream with his production work on Herbie Hancock’s 1983 smash “Rockit,” which he also co-wrote; Hancock’s follow-up LP, Sound-System, won him a Grammy. Throughout the mid-’80s Laswell was everywhere, playing bass on LPs from artists including Mick Jagger, Peter Gabriel, Yoko Ono, & Laurie Anderson. He also joined the avant group Curlew and produced a number of African acts. In 1986, Laswell joined guitarist Sonny Sharrock, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, & saxophonist Peter Brötzmann in the group Last Exit; a second solo LP, Hear No Evil, appeared 2 years later, and after a long hiatus he also resurrected Material in 1989 with Seven Souls. Another project, the hip-hop-flavored Praxis, was resumed after almost a decade of inactivity with 1992’s Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis). In 1990, Laswell formed another label, Axiom, to explore his interest in the new sounds of ambient and techno; where in the past his work rarely appeared solely under his own name, by the middle of the decade he was issuing several solo records annually in a wide range of styles from dub to jazz. He also remained among the most prolific producers in the business, collaborating with the likes of Dub Syndicate, Pete Namlook, Buckethead, & DJ Spooky. In 1998 he released Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974, a “remix translation” that won acclaim across the music world. IN 2001 he issued one with Carlos Santana as its subject entitled Divine Light: Reconstructions & Mix Translation. In 2004, Laswell signed a multi-album label deal with the Sanctuary Records group. The deal spawned his new label, Nagual. He also began to collaborate on a series of drum’n’bass-styled recordings with Submerged (aka Kurt Gluck of the Ohm Resistance imprint), the first of these, attributed to Bill Laswell vs. Submerged, was entitled Brutal Calling and issued by Avant in 2004 with contributions from Toshinori Kondo & Guy Licata. Through the Sanctuary label’s earlier acquisition of the seminal reggae label Trojan, Laswell now had access to the Jamaican label’s sizable back catalog. Picking some of his favorite cuts and remixing them, He issued the Trojan-sourced Dub Massive: Chapter One and Chapter Two in May 2005. Laswell and Submerged re-teamed under the Method of Defiance moniker for 2006’s The Only Way to Go Is Down on Sublight Records. This was followed by 2007’s Inamorata, on Ohm Resistance. This date found the pair teaming various drum’n’bass producers, including Future Prophecies, Evol Intent, & SPL, with jazz, rock, & avant artists such as Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, Nils Petter Molvaer, & Buckethead. That same year he issued the mix translation outing The Tony Williams Lifetime: Turn It Over (Redux). Laswell also released a collaboration with Finnish producer Fanu on Ohm Resistance titled Lodge, which includes contributions from Molvaer & Bernie Worrell. The notion of a live band created around the Method of Defiance structure was initiated with participation from Laswell, Worrell, Kondo, Licata, & Dr. Israel. The group was documented on Nihon from the RareNoise imprint in 2009. In 2010, Laswell initiated a new label called M.O.D. Technologies. Said to be centered around the principles of a solidified Method of Defiance lineup, the label released 3 albums that year: Method of Defiance’s Jahbulon, the instrumental dub-centric Incunabula, and a live offering from Laswell’s spouse, Gigi, with Material, entitled Mesgana Ethiopia. Laswell also collaborated with Submerged (who had left Method of Defiance) for a new group called the Blood of Heroes, which also included Dr. Israel, Enduser, & Justin Broadrick. The band released a self-titled debut & remix album Remain on Ohm Resistance in 2010. Laswell collaborated with master reggae & Radical Jewish Culture bassist/composer David Gould on a dub version of the latter’s 2009 album Feast of the Passover. The new recording, titled Dub of the Passover, was issued by Tzadik in 2011. Metastation released Aspiration, an electronic album billed to Bill Laswell & Friends (including Alice Coltrane, Carlos Santana, Pharoah Sanders, & Zakir Hussain),the tunes were dedicated to the ensemble members’ own inspirational figures, including H.H. Dalai Lama XIV, Sonny Sharrock, Rumi, & Pattabhi Jois. The Blood of Heroes’ 2nd album, The Waking Nightmare, appeared in 2012. M.O.D. Technologies continued releasing material, including archival releases by Praxis as well as Laswell’s collaborations with artists including DJ Krush, Milford Graves & Wadada Leo Smith. In 2014, Laswell collaborated with several Hawaiian musicians for the album Kauai: The Arch of Heaven, which appeared on Metastation. Laswell and Submerged collaborated once again in 2016, when After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? appeared on Ohm Resistance. Along with Masahiro Shimba, Laswell combined dub & opera on the ESP-Disk release Risurrezione. He also released work with Japanese drummer Hideo Yamaki & avant-rock guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim. In 2018, Laswell collaborated with drummer Simon Barker, guitarist Henry Kaiser, & saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on Mudang Rock, an album inspired by the Shamanic ritual music of Korea. The following year, he teamed with Jah Wobble to release the group offering Realm of Spells with guitarist Martin Chung, keyboardist George King, alternating drummers Mark Layton-Bennett & Hideo Yamaki, with guest Peter Apfelbaum on saxophone & flute. Before year’s end, he cut the single “Showing Up”/”The Power of the Vote” with Dave Douglas and released the 2017 Sonar session featuring electric guitarist David Torn. In April 2020, Laswell released Against Empire, an electro-acoustic offering issued by MOD Reloaded. His sidemen on the session included Sanders & Apfelbaum on saxes & flutes, Herbie Hancock on electric piano, drummers Jerry Marotta, Chad Smith, Satoyasu Shomura, & Yamaki, and Adam Rudolph on percussion. In October he collaborated with guitarist Mike Sopko & drummer Tyshawn Sorey on the power trio outing On Common Ground. Freely improvised, it was inspired by the live albums of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. Laswell spent most of 2021 working with his M.O.D. Technologies, issuing archival recordings for the first time and long out of print titles. Among the offerings that appeared that year were his own long-form ambient work Essay in Light and Tokyo Rotation, offering volumes drawn from various live sets played in 2009 and 2010 with an enviable clutch of Japanese musicians including Toshinori Kondo, Hideo Yamaki, DJ Krush, & Akira Sakata, among others. In 2022, Mr. Laswell & Swedish composer & multi-instrumentalist Ulf Ivarsson released the avant, electronica-laden fusion of Nammu on Ropeadope. He also issued The Cleansing on Tzadik, a duo recording with John Zorn. They followed it with a 2nd album titled Memoria in May 2023. He has been involved with many projects to this day, which leads us to one of his latest, Cosmic Trip, the new solo album by legendary Miles Davis saxophonist Sam Morrison. Blazing with heat, flowing with cool, crisp and edgy electric sound, the music allows you to savor every aspect of his remarkable talent. Mix-translation of course by Mr. Laswell and the album is presented by his MOD Reloaded label.
I had the complete honor to get some time with Mr. Laswell to dive into ‘Cosmic Trip‘ to get inside how it came to be. We talk about how the project went from that idea to the powerhouse sonic exploration it turne dout to be. We talk about one of the tracks specifically to get a sense of how it was born and the interesting part of the discussion around the album was just how Mr. Laswell found out just who this cat, Sam Morrison is. This is where the gold started ot be mined. We also talked briefly about his recently departed friend Sly Dunbar, and once again it wasn;t just anbout the music, it was about the person he was (which happens to be all about every side of music)/. We even quickly touched base on one of more recent artists he worked with whom I have had on the proGram, Nevaris, which just keeps reminding me how much of the things I have put into my ears, my mind and all my emotions that Bill has been a part of. He has literally shaped the listener and feeler of music I am. More to come.
Photo by: Hiroshi Ohnuma
