Jazz Archives

This album remains my absolute favorite of all. It is finally, after many years of searching, exactly my kind of music. There is the purity of ambient synthesizers, there is the sophistication of polyrhthmic beats. There is big boom of bass, the improvisation of bebop, the integration of Eastern themes. All that and Arabic lyricism as well. I have been following two threads of this kind of music since the 80s. One of them culminated in the music around Adrian Sherwood and OnU and the other around Bill Laswell and Axiom. In the end, Laswell was the champion and his music explores all the dimensions of sound I find fascinating, compelling and majestic. His collaborations with everyone from Sly and Robbie and Peter Namlook to his recreations of Bob Marley and Miles Davis are stunning. But in my opinion, his greatest work to date can be found on this album. It is track number seven, entitled The Hidden Garden / Naima. Yes, that Naima. It is, in my opinion, better than Coltrane's original. This is the music I have played in rented cars through the streets of Brooklyn and Tampa and Houston with the windows rolled down, just trying to show how that big boom can carry so much sophistication and flavor. This is the music that carries the literal wit of William S. Burroughs about deals with the devil.
The odd thing is with this album is like so many others, I don't associate a name with the songs. I just know them. They occupy a nameless place in memory because there is no communicating them. It's like a secret knowledge, a fountain of inspiration that you try to share but the water slips through your hands as you attempt to remove it from the source. I can say 'Laswell' to a few that know him and then what? There's this, of course, but there is also the perfect Dub Chamber 3. There's also the extraordinary Panthalassa. I know a man named Benzon who once looked after my son. If there's a man who knows my mind perhaps he is the one. In music he understands the power it transduces through the brain. I look at him with library envy and wish I could explain. I'll tell him Laswell and he'll nod, then pick up his horn and play a stretch and hang on to a note mystical and forlorn. And I'll say yes after a moment and say how did you know. He'll shrug and ask me don't we all who listen for the flow? And I forget this epic trance was dreamed in God's own mind, as I just wrangle syllables interpolated for the purposes of explicating that which transpired without any sense of time as if binded to the blind.

:::Review by cobb:::

Material - Hallucination Engine (1993)

1. Black Light 7:33
Written-By – B. Laswell, W. Shorter

2. Mantra 8:44
Written-By – B. Laswell, Caroline, Shankar
3. Ruins (Submutation Dub) 8:54
Written-By – B. Laswell
4. Eternal Drift 7:35
Written-By – B. Laswell, N. Skopelitis
5. Words Of Advice 3:58
Written-By – B. Laswell, W. Burroughs
6. Cucumber Slumber (Fluxus Mix) 7:30
Written-By – A. Johnson, J. Zawinul
7. The Hidden Garden / Naima 13:00
Written-By – B. Laswell, N. Skopelitis, S. Shaheen
8. Shadow Of Paradise 9:45
Written-By – B. Laswell, N. Skopelitis, Shankar

Credits
Arranged By – Bill Laswell
Bass – Bill Laswell, Bootsy Collins, Jonas Hellborg
Drums [Kit] – Sly Dunbar
Electric Piano, Organ [Hammond B-3] – Bernie Worrell
Ghatam – Vikku Vinayakram
Ghatam [Chatan], Congas, Percussion – Aiyb Dieng
Guitar, Sitar, Baglama – Nicky Skopelitis
Kanjira [Daff], Tambourine – Michael Baklouk
Ney – Jihad Racy
Oud – Simon Shaheen
Producer – Bill Laswell
Sampler, Programmed By [Beats, Loops] – Bill Laswell
Saxophone [Tenor, Soprano] – Wayne Shorter
Synthesizer – Jeff Bova, Nicky Skopelitis
Tabla – Trilok Gurtu, Zakir Hussain
Violin – Shankar, Simon Shaheen
Voice – Fahiem Dandan, Liu Sola, William S. Burroughs
Zither [Qanoum] – George Basil