ALTERED BEATS

ALTERED BEATS (12")

  1/  3D-Cut Transmission                        (Laswell,Showard,Wobble)      5.53
        Material featuring DXT, Jah Wobble, Bill Laswell & Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey
  2/  Black Wax                                  (Laswell)                     4.39
        Valis
  3/  Invasion of the Octopus People             (ISP)                         4.53
        Invisible Scratch Pickles

          Studios: Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York, Show-On Studio, Tokyo and
             Paul's Coffee Shop, Long Island, New York
          Engineers: Robert Musso, Oz Fritz, Jean-Pierre Sluys, DXT, Prince Paul, Koichi,
            "Oppenheimer" Matsuki and Scott Harding
          Generated by Bill Laswell
          Compiled and mastered at Greenpoint Studio by Robert Musso & Anton Fier
Bill Laswell (1,2): beats, bass, sounds; Jah Wobble: bass (1); DXT: scratches (1); Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey": drums (1); DJ Q*Bert, DJ Disk, Shortkut and MixMaster Mike (3): scratches.

          1996 - Axiom/Island (USA), PR12 7286-1 (Promo 12")

REVIEWS :

Bill Laswell is probably one of the most prolific (and accomplished) producer/performers of the last 20 years. His influence and productions have touched upon: World Music, Jazz, Rock, Dub, Experimental, Ambient, Electronica & Fusion. He's probably best known for this music involving Dub music (his true love), but this project is different. What Bill Laswell has done in effect, is assemble a collective of some of Hip-Hop greatest Turntablists, and constructed a project that although heavily indebted to Hip-Hop is a fusionistic sound of sorts. Whereby Hip-Hop production skills & approaches are coupled with Worldbeat sampling, Spoken Word Dialogue and music that touches upon & covers: metal, rock, funk, hip-hop, jazz, and are all seamlessly blended together by a group of turntablists that are arguably amongst the finest artists in their field.

"3D - Cut Transmission" finds Jah Wobble on Bass Guitar duties with Percussion & effects courtesy of Bill Laswell & Jerome Brailey, with 'DXT' (who features on several tracks here), handling the subtle turntable trickery sonics. Its a sound not a million miles away from the experimental Dub Albums that both Wobble & Laswell are famous for, and remains a engaging different sound with DXT's deft mixing.

"Valis'" introduces the intitally unassuming dreamy electronic psychedelia of "Black Wax", with it's ambient tones and downtempo mood, it's more Trip-Hop than it is Hip-Hop, but it's Cerebral, Organic & Ethereal tones, are perfectly in keeping with some of Laswells modern Creative/ Dark Ambient work.

"Invasion of the Octopus People" [...] produced and performed by 'Invisibl Skratch Piklz", and their energetic turntable acrobatics finds a welcome home here, as the fractured and freewheeling music aesthetic that they are renowned for, is fully in evidence here, and the hybrid of furious scratching & a Unified montage of abstract beats and dialogue that is broken down into their simplest elements, and using their highly skilled level of ability...cutting, scratching, and beat juggling everything until it's unrecognisable and sounds as something completely new. And almost as if to show that Hip-Hop isn't all about head-Nodding beats...

If [...] you have even a remote passing interest in the dynamics of turntable-derived music, this really is required purchasing....because as well as being technically as accomplished, as other leading turntable albums, this has the added benefit of (thanks to Bill Laswell producing the album), pushing the album into new territory, think of this album as a sort of Avant-garde turntablisim record, and your halfway to understanding how utterly essential this record is.

(edited for relevance to the 12" release - Silent Dave)

fetish 2000 (courtesy of the Amazon.com website)