Bill Laswell

Points of Order (Innerhythmic)
by Lex Marburger

Quick refresher course: Bill Laswell has been around since the ’80s, and has had some sort of credit on at least 300 albums, as either bassist, composer, producer, or “visionary.” A quick list of names he’s worked with (by no means exhaustive): Miles Davis, Ramones, John Zorn, Yoko Ono, George Clinton, William S. Burroughs. OK, so you know that people better than you like him and respect him. Now he’s got a new solo album on his own label. And what is it? Who’s on it? This time around, he’s got rappers Anti-Pop Consortium, guitar freak Buckethead, organist Grahm Haynes, and trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. You may not care or even know about these guys, Buckethead being an exception.

But y’know what? It doesn’t matter. He’s got sub-sonic bass grooves, meandering melodies, rappers with more than a passing knowledge of SAT vocabulary, and more musicality than any one person should have a right to. Broadly put, he likes to live in the world of dub, but with the ear of an ethnomusicologist and a taste for Cool that goes for Miles. Points of Order is an album that you can fuck to and think about; not an easy feat.
(133 W. 25th St. 5th Floor New York, NY 10001)