AUTOMATON

JIHAD (POINTS OF ORDER)

  1/  Port of Entry                              (Laswell)                     23.49
      (The Future Is With Control)
  2/  Intersection Point Between Empty           (Laswell)                     23.07
        Deserts and Written Deserts

          Created, recorded and mixed at Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York
          Engineering: Robert Musso
          Assistant: Layng Martine
          Produced by Bill Laswell
          Subharmonic: Robert Soares
          Material, Inc.: Tracy McKnight
          Axiom Dub Base: Peter Wetherbee/Bill Murphy
Nicky Skopelitis: guitars, treatments; Lili Haydn: violin; Tetsu Inoue: electronics; Bill Laswell: bass, beats; Robert Musso: treatments, processing.

          1994 - Strata (USA), 0005-2 (CD)
          2016 - Bill Laswell Bandcamp (digital only)

REVIEWS :

Bill Laswell is known for embarking in extreme musical projects, and his second album under the Automaton moniker might actually be one of the more extremes of all. Even though it was released the same year than the other Automaton record, there isn't much left of the somewhat traditional dub of Dub Terror Exhaust in Jihad: Points Of Order.

What we have here are two 23 minutes-long experiments, the first being centered around violonist Lili Haydn and the second around one of the usual suspects: guitarist Nicky Skopelitis. Boths tracks have similar structures. The lead intrument appears first, surrounded by Tetsu Inoue and Robert Musso's strange ambient landscapes. After a while, Laswell adds his obsessive bass and beats to the mix, then regularly, sometimes abruplty, takes them in and out. The album's title obviously comes from some weird, ghostly Arabic chants that can be heard here and there. As for Haydn and Skopelitis' performances, they're totally abstract, nothing won't even get close to a melody. I suspect that Laswell just asked them to randomly play anything that would come to their minds, and later used it as basic material, often superposing several layers.

Some might find this totally inlistenable. It certainly is bizarre, and really dark. Still, it happens to be one of my favorite Laswell records ever. The whole thing sounds "haunted". It has a supernatural, almost frightening atmosphere. It's like an echo of dead people, singing sad songs to the living, hoping one of us will listen... Of course, this pearl has been out of print for years, but if you enjoy Laswell's ambient- dub works, this one is a must have.

Shaomi (courtesy of the himself)