Bill Laswell
Permutation
[Ion]
Rating: 6.0
If there's one thing Bill Laswell knows, it's depth. Whereas much contemporary
electronic music prefers to skitter spastically on the surfaces in high frequencies,
Laswell's recent electronic projects are all anchored by an unassailable bottom. The
sound has back. What else could we expect from a bass player who cut his teeth in
late '70s head-funk outfits like Material and Massacre? As aggressively diverse
as Laswell's influences must be, the dominant mode in his last five years of musical
output has unquestionably been dub. An soiled dub-- aeons from the Home Town Hi Fi
sound system that Osbourne Ruddock hotwired to become King Tubby-- but dub all the
same, marked by the same deep beat, spacy echoing and vertigo reverb.
This year's harrowing Invisible Design was something of a departure from the
space- junk dub that Laswell has been overseeing for most of the decade. The "head's
up" to Amon Tobin's lawyers aside, Laswell's Permutation returns him to the
company of his old cronies: Nicky Skopelitis (aka Ekstasis), Hassan ibn Ali, and Dark
Matter. The results aren't difficult to predict-- expertly played, dub- based world
music, heavy on the reverb and cut with some solid drum-n-bass underneath. Ideal as
a soundtrack for sludgy narcotized sex and all the requisite mind games that precede
it.
Permutation has a great deal more gravity than the graceful but somewhat
undernourished Ekstasis album, Wake Up and Dream, which is something of
a predecessor. Skopelitis' warm and cautious guitar work is suspended over the
abysmal depths of Laswell's bass and overall production technique, precarious as
a rope footbridge. Sitar, tabla, wind instruments from every continent all add
local color but the Laswell/ Skopelitis interchange remains the heart of the
album.
Permutation takes some chances here and there, notably "Iron Black," a
fuzzy, riff- powered space- rock tune which divides its time between Chemical
Brothers- style big beat and the lysergic jams of Funkadelic. But for the most
part, this record doesn't cohere thematically; rather, it sounds like an afternoon
workout of five gifted musicians jamming with the tapes left rolling. There's
othing urgent about Permutation, nothing necessary. You'll enjoy it, but
you probably wouldn't pause it to take a piss.
This is the problem with so much of Laswell's recent output: its appeal is
undeniable, its throb is unavoidable, but it demands very little. It has the
quality of studio sessions, rather than a singular artistic statement. And this
may come down to a question of policy. Laswell seems to value multiple solid
releases annually over the possibility of a single great release every two years
or so-- one that could conceivably be culled and constructed from the many great
moments that wind up scattered throughout each year's reliable but rarely
revolutionary handful.
Perhaps this is why Laswell's Invisible Design was so striking: its
confessional candor, compositional rigor and disavowal of masks made it
such a radical offering. None of Laswell's other works had anticipated
his performance on that piece; by contrast, Permutation immediately
takes its place among the glut of reliable world- dub samplers that Laswell
has constructed over the last decade. Permutation still works wonders
for that hazy funk- love that makes the world go round, but the clarion of
Invisible Design continues to ring like Doomsday.
-Brent S. Sirota