Bill Laswell

The latest from Bill Laswell, Points of Order is a musical continuation of his earlier material, dabbling in drum & bass, atmospheric hip-hop, illbience and post-jazz. This album features stellar contributions from the likes of Anti Pop Consortium (vocals), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), Karl Berger (keyboards) and Bucket Head (guitar), and Laswell on bass. "Staple Nex" and "Broken Toenail Gland" are pretty good hip-hop/spoken word tracks by Anti Pop, with some eerie trumpet notes played over top to instil a dark atmosphere. Tunes like "X29," "White Arc" and "Iron Cross" are drum & bass/jazz-fusion pieces dipped in the dub-driven atmospherics Laswell is famous for, with keyboard tangents provided by Berger. It seems that Laswell has succeeded in uplifting aspects of the electronic music medium to pre-eminent art form status. What is great about this album is that it showcases various moods, from the brooding to the uplifting, the aggressive to the funk-driven, melding these emotions as easily as he blends musical styles.