Means of Deliverance

Bill Laswell goes Back To The Future with an epic acoustic solo release aptly titled Means of Deliverance. Laswell and I share a common thread that transcends music. Both Bill Laswell and I are from Kentucky and while we have never met and in all likely hood never will, there is a unique cultural bond that ties people of this region together. I jokingly refer to Kentucky as the cultural black hole of jazz when in fact the Commonwealth of Kentucky is one of the cradles of pure organic roots music and this is the Laswell p.o.v on this release. To be clear there is no country or blue grass per se however there is an unmistakable soulful hybrid quality with Laswell's compositions acting as a mirror image of the area where Laswell grew up which is essentially south western Kentucky. Music from the lower southern part of the Commonwealth ties people together through celebration, through food and through all the joys and sorrows that accompany the time spent on this earth. Laswell shares his prolific talent on a most unique four string weapon of choice being the Warwick Alien fretless acoustic bass guitar. The results are stunning. There are the pseudo jazz intellectuals that raise an eye brow at Laswell's work with such artists as Mick Jagger and Sting not to mention some journeys through the darker side of the metal genre but here is where these individuals are missing out. Bill Laswell is the cultural by product of his own experience. From growing up in Kentucky to sharing a stage with Sting, Laswell is a living breathing testament to what artistic purity is about. Laswell is fearless. A label owner, a virtuoso instrumentalist and a composer puts Laswell in that rare category of musical triple threat. Against The Upper House opens this stellar recording and for those unfamiliar with the fretless four string it is a slightly more resonant version of the traditional upright bass used in traditional jazz ensembles today. Laswell's composition as a deceptively subtle Appalachian sound both lyrically and in texture. Laswell displays a deft hand and keen harmonic sense as this sonic exploratory of a personal journey begins to unfold. Ouroboros embraces the zen like less is more approach while the harmonic movement gives one the sense of motion in a motionless state. As the tune continues the additional irony aside from Laswell and I being natives of the same state is that this release is easily a critics worst nightmare. Placing an arbitrary tag on the work of an artist I have never met is never something I am totally comfortable doing and here it is simply impossible which for me is the sign of true genius. Country, blues, folk and a plethora of influences come together into a personal hybrid that only Laswell could pull off with the precision of a surgeon. Remembering this is the same Bill Laswell that co-wrote the Herbie Hancock cross over Rock-It is simply amazing. Low Country winds up this personal journey as a blues infused reminder of the contributions of the great if not sadly forgotten Delta blues men from a time gone by. Bill Laswell has found a magical sweet spot deeper than his own soul, he plays well beyond the music but allows the compositions to remain the voice. A virtuoso the likes of Laswell could easily become caught up in the self indulgent net of four string pyrotechnics but artists don't do that. This is not a release in the strictest sense of the word but an experience. The ability to transform memories and raw emotion into an organic presentation such as this is as honest and as real as music gets. Bill Laswell hears sound differently than most people, his gift of harmonic invention is a textured wonderland that others can only dream of. Bill Laswell is why I write about music. ---CriticalJazz.com Product Description Over the course of his illustrious career, visionary bassist-producer Bill Laswell has been one of the most prolific and restlessly creative forces in contemporary music. A sound conceptualist who has always been a step ahead of the curve, he has put his inimitable production stamp on a stunning range of important recordings by such stars as Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Public Image Ltd, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Bootsy Collins, Motorhead, Sting, Carlos Santana, just to name a few. Probably most notable was Herbie Hancock, who co-wrote with Laswell the pivotal 1983 worldwide smash-hit single Rock-It, which introduced scratching to the mainstream, inspired a generation of turntablists and gave the great jazz pianist instant street credibility among the burgeoning hip-hop cognoscenti. With Means of Deliverance, his most austere and personal album to date, Laswell pushes the envelope in a zen-like way. An intimate and revealing solo bass outing, performed entirely on a Warwick Alien fretless four-string acoustic bass guitar, it puts a premium on melody while tapping into some of Laswell's deepest roots as a musician. I think in this case, it's about where you come from, he says of his first-ever solo bass recording. And you never lose that. If you come from a background where you hear country music, you hear blues and simple music, and you're born with it…maybe you forget about it later on when you get involved with more complex or avant garde things, but it never really goes away. You just have to sometimes move away all the things on your plate and get back to that natural thing. In a very real sense, Means of Deliverance celebrates Laswell's own Americana upbringing in a small town outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky. I grew up in the country, he explains. I heard hillbillies play, and it's different than hearing them on records. And it stays with you. You see the trains go by on the tracks and you realize people are poor and there won't be anything else for them, and that stays with you. Many of these bands today are inventing images of these things. I actually was there, I grew up like that. So you have this thing deep in you and you play that thing of where you grew up. And it's rich. It's American music…Midwest music. Pieces like the Delta blues-infused Low Country and the melancholy but moving Against the Upper House exude profound feelings of Laswell's rural Midwestern upbringing while his sentir-sounding bass playing on Buhala and Epiphinea reflect his more recent interest in Moroccan, Malian and Ethiopian musics. On the buoyant A Dangerous Road, Laswell utilizes an Ebow to create a tamboura-like drone underneath his melodic motifs while he incorporates a sample of an Ethiopian stringed instrument on Bagana/Sub Figura X. Elsewhere, the adventurous bassist and improviser makes almost subliminal use of slide while also exploring bell-like harmonics on the bubbling, slowly insinuating Ouroboros and the mesmerizing In Failing Light, affects resounding upright bass tones on the sparsely appointed Aeon and strikes a surging vibe with muted strumming on the low-end groover, Lightning in the South. Means of Deliverance stands as a crowning achievement for the prolific bassist-composer-producer and occupies a special spot in Laswell's sprawling discography. These kind of things take more priority because they're personal, he says. And they have great meaning because you take the kind of devotion and commitment that goes into religion and you put that into each note and each chord. And that's a powerful thing.