BILL LASWELL — Bass Terror (with Nicholas James Bullen) (review)

BILL LASWELL — Bass Terror (with Nicholas James Bullen) album cover Split · 1994 · Dub/Ska/Reggae Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
js
In the early 90s, breakthroughs in digital technology caused the cost of professional recording equipment to drop drastically to the point that almost anyone with a steady gig could get a digital recorder, something to loop or create beats with and a CD burner and become a one person recording studio and CD production company. This increase in easy homemade product led to an increased interest in digitally produced beat oriented electronic music, or what became known as “electronica”. Some of this music was interesting at first, but soon this world of easy access and production fielded endless repetitive and simple homemade beats and sounds. When I first bought Bill Laswell and Nicholas Bullen’s CD, “Bass Terror”, back in the day, it was a mildly interesting piece of electro fluff, but it soon proved to be the tip of the iceberg for tons of other quickly slapped together projects put together by thousands of artists around the world.

“Bass Terror” isn’t a terrible CD, and may prove interesting to some, but revisiting it makes you realize how quickly this sort of quick-n-easy project became antiquated. For a little background, this CD is not a joint effort, but instead includes one track by Bill Laswell, a pre-electronica leader in self-made product, and two tracks by Nicholas Bullen, who helped create grindcore with his bandmates in Napalm Death. The title, “Bass Terror”, is misleading as there is nothing particularly scary going on here unless you are afraid to fall asleep.

The lengthy opening track by Laswell opens up okay with a fun groovy bass riff backed with a drumnbass looped track that sounds ancient by today’s standards. Bill dubs in some Bootsy style flanged pops on the bass and this track has its moments in a kitsch retro kind of way but soon wanders into rambling preacher samples and ambient drift. Southern preachers may be amusing to a “sophisticated” New Yorker like Laswell, but its fairly mundane and un-amusing to those from a less “cosmopolitan” background.

The two following tracks by Bullen alternate repetitive slow simple sluggish hip-hop/rock unchanging four beat loops with quiet industrial ambient dronish noise. The quiet noise sections are well done, and I would imagine the beats were made dull and simple on purpose, but still, those kind of repeating four beat patterns became both overdone and obsolete very quickly.
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