William Otis Laswell is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub and ambient styles.
Ustad Zakir Hussain is an Indian tabla virtuoso, composer, percussionist, music producer, film actor and eldest son of tabla player Ustad Allah Rakha.
Jonas Hellborg is a Swedish bass guitarist. He has collaborated with John McLaughlin, Ustad Sultan Khan, Fazal Qureshi, Bill Laswell, Shawn Lane, Jens Johansson, Anders Johansson, Ginger Baker, Michael Shrieve, V. Selvaganesh, Jeff Sipe, Mattias IA Eklundh, Public Image Ltd, and Buckethead.
Trilok Gurtu is an Indian percussionist and composer whose work has blended the music of India with jazz fusion and world music.
Passion is an album released in 1989 by the English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel. It was the first Peter Gabriel album to be released on Real World Records. It is his second soundtrack and eighth album overall. It was originally composed as the soundtrack album for the film The Last Temptation of Christ, but Gabriel spent several months after the film's release further developing the music, finally releasing it as a full-fledged album instead of a movie soundtrack. It is seen as a landmark in the popularisation of world music, and won a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album in 1990. It was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002.
Material is a musical group formed in 1979 and led by bass guitarist Bill Laswell.
Nils Petter Molvær also known as NPM is a Norwegian jazz trumpeter, composer, and record producer. He is considered a pioneer of future jazz, a genre that fuses jazz and electronic music, best showcased on his most commercially successful album, Khmer.
Axiom was a record label founded by musician Bill Laswell in 1990 with the support of Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records.
Karsh Kale is a British musician, record producer, singer, songwriter, film composer and DJ. He is considered one of the pioneering figures in defining the Asian Underground genre by mixing disparate genres of music such as Indian classical and folk with electronica, rock, pop and ambient music. In addition to production, remixing, and DJ work, Kale is known for his tabla drumming and film composition. Two of his songs, "Distance" and "One Step Beyond" were featured on the Windows Vista sound system.
Nicholas Bullen is an English composer, artist and writer.
Tabla Beat Science was a musical group founded in 1999 by Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell. Its style consists of a mixture of Hindustani music, Asian Underground, ambient music, drum and bass and electronica. In 2001 Karsh Kale was approached by super producer Bill Laswell to contribute to a project he was calling “Tabla Beat Science”. The album would feature the leading tabla artists who were taking the instrument into modern and exciting new contexts. Kale joined Laswell, Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu and Talvin Singh to create “Tala Matrix” which is considered to be one of the greatest modern explorations of tabla fusion in recent years. All members would contribute music to the project. The project eventually evolved into a live band featuring Kale on drums and electric tabla, Zakir Hussain on acoustic tabla, Bill Laswell on bass, Ustad Sultan Khan on Sarangi and DJ Disk – turntables. Tabla Beat Science went on to tour the world from their debut at the 16,000 strong Stern Grove concert, which eventually became a 2 disc live release on Palm Pictures. Other stops included Dubai, Beirut, LA, Tokyo, London’s Barbican Center, and finally at the 2nd annual Barsi concert in Mumbai honoring the death anniversary of Hussain’s famous father Ustad Allah Rakha. Tabla Beat Science also had many guest artists joining their electric live concerts including Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Ganesh Iyer, Salim Merchant and the Midival Punditz.
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld is the debut studio album by English electronic music group The Orb, released as a double album on 2 April 1991 by Big Life. It is a continuous, progressive composition consisting of several tracks advancing the "journey" concept; its framework is of a two-hour psychedelic trip through genres and studio electronics, produced to "push the threshold" of live stage performance, and comprising vocal samples and sound effects interspersed with original music.
Pomme Fritz is a mini-album by English electronic music group The Orb, released on 13 June 1994 by Island Records. Produced to sustain the group during a period of mismanagement, it was their first album with German producer Thomas Fehlmann, as well as their last with input from Kris Weston, who appears in a much diminished role as engineer. The chaotic Pomme Fritz moved the group away from their melodic, ambient sound towards a more abstract, experimental style, incorporating instances of noise, sampling, fragmented rhythms, industrial textures, indecipherable voices, and sound collage techniques. Island Records "hated" the album and "didn't understand it at all", according to group leader Alex Paterson.
DJ Disk is a San Francisco Bay Area turntablist of Panamanian, Colombian, and Nicaraguan descent. Born Luis Quintanilla on October 7, 1970, in San Francisco, Disk began scratching and mixing vinyl at a young age. In 1992 he joined his long-time friend DJ Qbert among the Rock Steady Crew DJs, later changing the group's name to the Invisibl Skratch Piklz.
The Burning World is the sixth studio album by American experimental rock band Swans. It was released in 1989, through record label Uni Records; the band's only major label release. Co-produced by Bill Laswell and band leader Michael Gira, the album features a major stylistic shift from their past releases, being very tuneful and accessible compared to the bleak, industrialized sound from their past records. It received a mixed reception and was a commercial disappointment; the band was dropped off the record label following its poor performance.
Mark Nauseef, in Cortland, New York, is a drummer and percussionist who has enjoyed a varied career, ranging from rock music during the 1970s with his time as a member of the Ian Gillan Band and, temporarily with Thin Lizzy when Brian Downey left for a short time, to a wide range of musical styles in more recent times, playing with many notable musicians from all over the world.
Axiom Collection series of albums are compilations from the Axiom record label released between 1991 and 1996.
Hallucination Engine is a 1994 album by the New York based music group Material. The album mixes jazz, dub, funk and Indian music.
Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974 is a remix album by Miles Davis, released on February 16, 1998, by Sony Records. It contains compositions from prior albums, including In a Silent Way (1969), On the Corner (1972), and Get Up With It (1974), remixed by Bill Laswell; it is subtitled "Reconstruction and Mix Translation by Bill Laswell". The album was composed as a dark, continuous tone poem divided by four sections of Davis' jazz fusion recordings. Panthalassa received generally positive reviews from music critics and sold well, charting at number four on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums.
In Concert 1972 is a double live album by sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and sarodya Ali Akbar Khan, released in 1973 on Apple Records. It was recorded at the Philharmonic Hall, New York City, in October 1972, and is a noted example of the two Hindustani classical musicians' celebrated jugalbandi (duet) style of playing. With accompaniment from tabla player Alla Rakha, the performance reflects the two artists' sorrow at the recent death of their revered guru, and Khan's father, Allauddin Khan. The latter was responsible for many innovations in Indian music during the twentieth century, including the call-and-response dialogue that musicians such as Shankar, Khan and Rakha popularised among Western audiences in the 1960s.
