Bill Laswell

Serving as a foundational presence within New York City's underground music community for decades, bassist, producer, label founder, and creative visionary Bill Laswell stands among the most productive figures in modern music. In roles as performer, studio craftsman, and imprint head, his imprint appears across thousands of recordings, more than 135 issued under his own name beginning with Baselines from 1985, most defined by an unmistakable approach blending post-punk vitality with the visceral grooves of funk, fusion, and dub. He is equally recognized for high-profile partnerships, having established Praxis, Material, and multiple additional ensembles. Laswell further documents spacious electronic ambient works alongside hybrid explorations spanning Indian, Latin, and African traditions through opera, klezmer, hip-hop, jazz, and additional idioms. He issued Nammu with Ulf Ivarsson in 2022, along with two joint recordings alongside John Zorn: The Cleansing from 2022 and Memoria from 2023.

Laswell has anchored the downtown New York music landscape since the late 1970s, when he launched Material, a fluid collective whose recordings extended from sharp-edged art-funk on 1981's Memory Serves to sleek, forward-looking electro-pop suited for clubs on 1982's One Down. His entry into broader commercial recognition arrived via co-writing and producing Herbie Hancock's pioneering 1983 electro piece "Rockit." Across subsequent years he has contributed as bassist to numerous endeavors, among them the avant-jazz-rock supergroup Last Exit, while also helming dozens of sessions for an extensive roster of artists that includes Mick Jagger, Nona Hendryx, and Iggy Pop. During the 1990s Laswell created and operated the Axiom imprint, devoted to ambient, dub, and electronic releases. He likewise oversaw multiple remix and reconstruction efforts, inaugurated by Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974. In the early 2000s he delved into Indian music via the supergroup Tabla Beat Science and established forward-looking drum'n'bass units such as Method of Defiance with Submerged. From the 2010s onward he has directed M.O.D. Technologies, a boundary-crossing label whose catalog features avant-jazz releases by artists including Milford Graves and Rudresh Mahanthappa, together with On Common Ground, a power trio completed by guitarist Mike Sopko and drummer Tyshawn Sorey.

Born February 12, 1955, in Salem, Illinois, Laswell first took up guitar before shifting focus to bass. Raised chiefly in the Detroit region, he refined his abilities within local funk groups prior to moving to New York in 1978. There he assembled Material as a vehicle for his exploratory stance across sounds that encompass jazz, hip-hop, and worldbeat. Initially serving as the backup unit for Daevid Allen, the ensemble soon pursued independent activity, releasing its debut EP Temporary Music in 1979. Although Material's initial output leaned more experimental, the group soon turned toward more approachable, pop-oriented material, among them the club staple "Bustin' Out" featuring Nona Hendryx and the album One Down, which contained one of Whitney Houston's earliest lead vocal appearances.

Alongside his leadership of Material, Laswell pursued an independent path, releasing Baselines in 1983 on Celluloid, a label he partly owned and operated. Appearances on pivotal recordings by David Byrne, John Zorn, Fred Frith, and the Golden Palominos positioned Laswell as a central hub within the downtown N.Y.C. milieu, while his production work on Herbie Hancock's 1983 hit "Rockit," which he also co-wrote, brought mainstream attention; Hancock's subsequent album Sound-System earned him a Grammy. Throughout the mid-1980s Laswell maintained a ubiquitous presence, contributing bass to albums by Mick Jagger, Peter Gabriel, Yoko Ono, and Laurie Anderson. He further joined the avant ensemble Curlew and produced several African acts.

In 1986 Laswell united with guitarist Sonny Sharrock, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and saxophonist Peter Brötzmann in Last Exit; a follow-up solo album, Hear No Evil, surfaced two years afterward, and following an extended pause he revived Material in 1989 with Seven Souls. A separate project, the hip-hop-inflected Praxis, resumed after nearly a decade of dormancy with 1992's Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis). In 1990 Laswell established the Axiom imprint to pursue his interest in emerging ambient and techno aesthetics; whereas earlier work seldom appeared exclusively under his own name, by the middle of the decade he was issuing multiple solo recordings each year across styles ranging from dub to jazz. He likewise remained among the busiest producers, collaborating with Dub Syndicate, Pete Namlook, Buckethead, and DJ Spooky. In 1998 he released Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974, a "remix translation" that garnered widespread acclaim. In 2001 he issued another such project centered on Carlos Santana, entitled Divine Light: Reconstructions & Mix Translation.

In 2004 Laswell entered a multi-album agreement with the Sanctuary Records group. The arrangement yielded his new imprint, Nagual. He also commenced a series of drum'n'bass-oriented recordings alongside Submerged, also known as Kurt Gluck of the Ohm Resistance label, the first of which, credited to Bill Laswell vs. Submerged and titled Brutal Calling, appeared on Avant in 2004 with contributions from Toshinori Kondo and Guy Licata. Through Sanctuary's prior acquisition of the foundational reggae label Trojan, Laswell gained access to that Jamaican imprint's extensive catalog. Selecting favored tracks and remixing them, he released the Trojan-derived Dub Massive: Chapter One and Chapter Two in May 2005.

Laswell and Submerged reunited under the Method of Defiance name for 2006's The Only Way to Go Is Down on Sublight Records. This was followed by 2007's Inamorata on Ohm Resistance. That session paired various drum'n'bass producers, including Future Prophecies, Evol Intent, and SPL, with jazz, rock, and avant figures such as Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, Nils Petter Molvaer, and Buckethead. The same year he issued the mix translation project The Tony Williams Lifetime: Turn It Over (Redux). Laswell also released a collaboration with Finnish producer Fanu on Ohm Resistance titled Lodge, featuring contributions from Molvaer and Bernie Worrell. The concept of a live ensemble built around the Method of Defiance framework took shape with involvement from Laswell, Worrell, Kondo, Licata, and Dr. Israel. The unit was documented on Nihon from the RareNoise imprint in 2009.

In 2010 Laswell launched a new label, M.O.D. Technologies. Described as revolving around the principles of a stable Method of Defiance configuration, the imprint issued three albums that year: Method of Defiance's Jahbulon, a reggae recording featuring Hawk and Dr. Israel; the instrumental dub-focused Incunabula; and a live set by Laswell's spouse Gigi alongside Material, titled Mesgana Ethiopia. Laswell further partnered with Submerged, who had departed Method of Defiance, for a new group called the Blood of Heroes that also included Dr. Israel, Enduser, and Justin Broadrick. The band released a self-titled debut and the remix album Remain on Ohm Resistance in 2010.

Laswell joined master reggae and Radical Jewish Culture bassist/composer David Gould on a dub rendering of the latter's 2009 album Feast of the Passover. The resulting recording, titled Dub of the Passover, was issued by Tzadik in 2011. Metastation released Aspiration, an electronic album credited to Bill Laswell & Friends that includes Alice Coltrane, Carlos Santana, Pharoah Sanders, and Zakir Hussain; the pieces were dedicated to the participants' own sources of inspiration, among them H.H. Dalai Lama XIV, Sonny Sharrock, Rumi, and Pattabhi Jois. The Blood of Heroes' second album, The Waking Nightmare, appeared in 2012. M.O.D. Technologies persisted in releasing material, encompassing archival Praxis recordings together with Laswell collaborations involving DJ Krush, Milford Graves, and Wadada Leo Smith. In 2014 Laswell partnered with several Hawaiian musicians for the album Kauai: The Arch of Heaven, which surfaced on Metastation. Laswell and Submerged worked together once more in 2016, when After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? appeared on Ohm Resistance. Alongside Masahiro Shimba, Laswell merged dub and opera on the ESP-Disk release Risurrezione. He likewise issued work with Japanese drummer Hideo Yamaki and avant-rock guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim.

In 2018 Laswell collaborated with drummer Simon Barker, guitarist Henry Kaiser, and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on Mudang Rock, an album drawing from the Shamanic ritual music of Korea. The following year Laswell joined Jah Wobble for the ensemble release Realm of Spells featuring guitarist Martin Chung, keyboardist George King, alternating drummers Mark Layton-Bennett and Hideo Yamaki, and guest Peter Apfelbaum on saxophone and flute. Before year's end he recorded 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 issued Against Empire, an electro-acoustic recording released by MOD Reloaded. His supporting musicians on the date included Sanders and Apfelbaum on saxes and flutes, Herbie Hancock on electric piano, drummers Jerry Marotta, Chad Smith, Satoyasu Shomura, and Yamaki, plus Adam Rudolph on percussion. In October he partnered with guitarist Mike Sopko and drummer Tyshawn Sorey on the power trio recording On Common Ground. Freely improvised, it drew inspiration from the live albums of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream.

Laswell devoted much of 2021 to his M.O.D. Technologies imprint, unveiling archival recordings for the first time along with long-out-of-print titles. Among the releases that surfaced that year were his own extended ambient work Essay in Light and Tokyo Rotation, presenting volumes drawn from assorted live performances in 2009 and 2010 with a distinguished roster of Japanese musicians that included Toshinori Kondo, Hideo Yamaki, DJ Krush, and Akira Sakata, among others. In 2022 Laswell and Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist Ulf Ivarsson released the avant, electronica-infused fusion Nammu on Ropeadope. He also issued The Cleansing on Tzadik, a duo recording with John Zorn. They followed it with a second album titled Memoria in May 2023.