Bill Laswell
Baselines

An album among the most influential of the last thirty years. Or, if you prefer, the manifesto of the oblique art of a musician with few equals, one of those who truly "made a difference" in the way of creating music, playing it, and putting it on record. And still, a monument of impressive technical-instrumental mastery, a work that rivals equally with the masterpieces of Fusion of the period without actually embracing any genre, without following well-defined stylistic coordinates. It is "cross-over," in the etymological (and more literal) sense of the term.

He is a bassist, Bill Laswell, but above all, he is a "brain" with an incalculable intelligence quotient. And he is one of the bassists I have always envied the most, alongside the Pastorius, the Clarke, the Levin, the Claypool... In short, those musicians you can listen to, study, investigate, delve into as much as you want, but whom you will never be able to imitate in a lifetime, not even with divine intercession. I, as a bassist and decent Rock and Jazz performer, tell you that what you hear on an album like "Baselines" makes you want to pull your hair out, much like the sensation I experience when I revisit Jaco's "Donna Lee" or the central solo of "School Days." Too much technique, and if only it were just that... There is the Genius of the instrumentalist for whom the instrument has no secrets, there is a taste for continuous and unthinkable variation (no measure resembles the next); there is precision, speed, consistency in the intensity of blows worthy of a robot; there is a tendency to explore, in the same piece, different scales in all their extension; you ascend, you descend, you linger, you resume running on modal scales mixed with Arabian motifs, changing time with ease from even divisions to odd divisions, seasoning it all with spontaneous and superb glissandos (and let me tell you, glissandos played on the "fretless" are among the most beautiful things one can hear from a bassist: think of the lamented Mick Karn, who made this particular technique his trademark).

There is also, and perhaps it is the aspect that will stand out the most in the years following this debut, a distinctively ethnic and "experimental" curiosity, which will lead Bill to flirt more than once with electronics, to offer daring "drum & bass" solutions, to marry the "zornian" (and "byrnian") avant-garde, to navigate complex paths between Dub and Industrial, Hardcore and Metal; treading on labels and cooking everything together in a stew of styles where I challenge anyone to orient themselves. Even the "spoken word" of a beat icon like William S. Burroughs has not escaped the "omnivorous totality" of his art. "Baselines" (it's 1983) describes the initial stages of this itinerary, and supporting the bassist of Material is a collective of great quality, featuring the name of Fred Firth, another guru of the "avant-music" scene who needs no introduction. And his irreverent vein can be perceived everywhere, permeating the entire album, from the first to the last minute. And the trombone of George Lewis, occasionally present in semi-noisy parentheses, confirms the impression: here we are dealing with a curious, yet masterful fusion of English surrealism of the "seventies" brand and No-Wave-flavored New York avant-garde; with, in addition, the energy and rhythmic power of the best Funk-Jazz of the period (that same year Laswell played in Herbie Hancock's "Future Shock," an album he also produced and co-authored). So much material, in short. So much that I can't summarize it all here, otherwise, you might fall asleep...

...on the contrary, there's little to be bored about here, starting with the extreme Free of "Activate": a steamroller that crushes everything, a whirlwind of unheard-of instrumental violence, dominated in the second part by Bill's frantic solo lines (impossible to have a precise picture of the situation until after about ten listens); yet everything makes sense, everything is in its place, the instruments collide but do not trample each other, there is an ordering "ratio" above what you hear, born from rigorous (maniacal?) studio planning. The seven-plus minutes of an exotic and fervent "Work Song" reveal in the bassist a monster in the use of the pedal, among distortions and dilations acting as a backdrop to the tenor sax of Ralph Carney, and to fragments of sampled voice. Irresistible the slap and Caribbean percussions of "Hindsight"; surprising the "dirty" and iconoclastic electronics of "Uprising" and the (more discreet) electronics of a dark "Upright Man," the echoes of Capt. Beefheart heard in "Lowlands" are unsettling; but you will simply be left speechless when you listen to the not even 2 minutes of "Moving Target": it's a lesson in electric bass, and while listening to those damp's and dizzying passages, I get endlessly envious because I know I will never manage to play like that...

It's an album that will make your head spin, but from which you will have the definitive confirmation of being in the presence of a phenomenon (the endless list of illustrious collaborations of Our Man, after all, might speak louder than anything else). And for those who haven't listened to this "Baselines" yet, please do so as soon as possible...