Bill Laswell
Invisible Design

THE REVIEW

White, impalpable cover. Aseptic. Album title and title of the work. Nothing more. When they say: SYNTHESIS...

You call it "minimalism" - and by "you" I mean the sound and image experts, who would surely have more refined and interesting words to describe this cover. Indeed it is "minimal" - and if the music contained here is also "minimal," the cover could become something more than an impalpable aseptic white background. It could become what is called a "statement of intent." That is, it's as if the author - who you will know very well or hope to, and knowing him you've likely already formed an idea - had taken the floor and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, expect something unspecified. And this something might bore you and make you sleepy, but maybe not. In that white background, you might see nothing but, indeed, a white background - but maybe not. You might see invisible lines - and how can you see them if they're invisible...? Well, maybe strain your eyes, maybe give them free reign and creative capacity, and then you might see something" - a bit like inside Malevich's black square: what do I see if it's pitch black...? But make an effort: the square is there, indelible, it doesn't go away. Elementary, provocative (mocking...?). The rest is up to you. I don't know if you knew, and if you didn't know, now know it, that the audience creates the work as much or more than the artist. The artist provides, suggests. The audience/the listener receives and elaborates. Defines, in short.

Listening to "Invisible Design" doesn't unleash, it doesn’t drag, it doesn’t weigh you down. It gives you a blank slate and tells you: "You're free to think. The path exists but isn't marked, and it defines itself second by second, minute by minute, like just-distinguished forms deformed by darkness." Noise, silence. Silence, noise. Order and disorder, structure and decomposition. And the fretless sounds, velvety and bruised, within a black night of daydreaming with open eyes and attentive ears. Desolate environmental theaters, jolts amid the empty suspension of a primordial fog - and you, Commander Guevara, would you ever have imagined rediscovering "your" Cuba submerged in this placid ocean of ethereal, pulsing vibrations...? And the square of a Greek city resonating with metallic impressions, spectral like sounds reverberated and filtered by an attentive and hypersensitive ear...? And slowed-down nocturnal airs suffused on a dub background, and the peace of the senses induced by simply PERFECT riffs like that of "Aisha," of those that come once and never leave...? Indelible, like a monochromatic square.

No rating, no judgment. Pure Sensation.