BILL LASWELL

SACRED SYSTEM CHAPTER 1: BOOK OF ENTRANCE

  1/  Babylon Ghost                              (Laswell)                     6.00
  2/  Dread Iternal                              (Laswell)                     9.19
  3/  Cyborg Assault                             (Laswell)                     5.37
  4/  Galactic Zone                              (Laswell)                     9.31
  5/  Sub Terrain                                (Laswell)                     16.12

          Created at Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York
          Engineering and pre-production: Robert Musso
          Studio Support: Anton Fier
          Produced and arranged by Bill Laswell
          Material, Inc.: John Brown
          Roots Control: Skiz
Bill Laswell: beats, bass, keyboards; Robert Musso: programming.

          1996 - ROIR (USA), RUSCD8225 (CD)
          2004 - ROIR (USA), RUSLP8225 (Vinyl)

REVIEWS :

Another excellent disc from that omnipresent (in my CD collection) bassist. This project is nearly all dub material (which is good), although some ambient and reggae influences are notable. The disc contains five tracks, ranging from 5 to 12 minutes. The sound is best categorized as great bass and drums, with ambient/reggae insturmentation. I can't isolate any specific songs, because they are all pretty similar, but good.

Overall - 5/5

Creaig Dunton (courtesy of the False Prophet Campaign website)

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Of all the ambient dub bands I have heard, I like Bill Laswell's dub the best. Laswell is not a stranger to dub, having explored it on some of his Divination releases. Sacred System demonstrates the creativity and musical sense of a musician that leads rather than follows. The hypnotic reggae beat in the 5 trance dub edits on this album has a steady drive and movement absent in other forms of ambient music. Anton Fier joined Laswell in the studio, although with the multilayering of sounds on the album it is hard to identify the progenitor of any sound beside the bass, Laswell's instrument. "Cyborg Assault" has probably the most drive, and is one of my favorites on the album. "Dread Iternal" and "Sub Terrain" are also excellent for radio play.

Jeff Johansen (courtesy of the Music for Asylums website)