[Column] Bill Laswell & Friends: Deconstruction of the 80s - The core of the "hybrid 80s" reorganized by acoustic demolitionists
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Why did you choose the title “Deconstruction of the 80s”?
A long column that uses only facts to analyze the “acoustic deconstruction and reconstruction” that Bill Laswell practiced in the 1980s. About Material, Herbie Hancock’s “Future Shock,” Last Exit, connecting to world music, and more.
Bill Laswell’s musical activities in the 1980s were a series of ““deconstructions and reconstructions,’’ freely crossing genres, cultures, performance forms, and national borders. Funk, hip-hop, Afrobeat, world music, free jazz, noise… Laswell’s projects in the 1980s are so diverse that each one is a sound generated within a different network.
Because of his diversity, it was not easy to get a bird’s-eye view of his activities at the time. Because individual works were fragmented and scattered, listeners were unable to grasp the ““whole picture.’’
However, with the compilation album Deconstruction of the 80s, things changed completely. This album is a compilation of the multi-genre and multi-project sound sources that Laswell was involved in in the 1980s, remastered and reconstructed. In other words, it can be said that this compilation itself appeared as a ““completed form of deconstruction and reconstruction.’’
This article focuses on the recordings of this album and projects from that time, and follows the facts of how Bill Laswell & Friends deconstructed and reorganized the acoustics of the 1980s. By looking at the whole picture, we can for the first time understand the meaning of the phrase “Deconstruction of the 80s” from both a sonic and cultural perspective.
Introduction: Why “deconstructing the 80s”
When talking about the music history of the 1980s, Bill Laswell is always on the other side. Behind the flashy sounds of major pop, he was a ““sound editor’’ who reorganized black music, noise, traditional African music, dub, avant-garde, and studio technology, and traversed a variety of fields as a producer, bassist, and conductor.
The reason why Laswell deserves to be called ““Deconstruction of the 1980s’’ lies in the following facts.
- His activities were a “crossroads” bridging pop and underground
- The produced works are parallelized across the boundaries of world music, jazz, and noise.
- Breaking the 80’s sound formula and turning the studio into a testing ground
- The released works have blurred the genre definition.
In this article, we introduce Bill Laswell and the musicians around him. How the acoustics of the 1980s were “deconstructed and reorganized” will be tracked based on facts.
1. Eve of the 80s: Material and New York Downtown
1-1. Downtown scene context
In New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the punk/no wave wave had passed. It was a time when experimental music and club culture began to mix, centered around SoHo and Lower Manhattan. Included were John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Fred Frith, Sonny Sharrock, and Ronald Shannon Jackson. A “cross-border” network has been formed, and Laswell is at the center of it.
1-2. Material formation
Material (formed in 1955, active since 1979) is a project centered around Laswell, Michael Beinhorn, and Fred Maher. Initially, the group focused on no-wave, minimal, and funk, and later expanded to include dance, hip-hop, and ethnic elements.
Key facts:
- "”Memory Serves’’ (1981) with Sonny Sharrock and Henry Threadgill
- Established a “funk x avant-garde” composition
- From the mid-1980s, became a connection point with major artists such as Herbie Hancock
2. Herbie Hancock, “Future Shock” (1983) — Redefining “80s pop
Laswell’s biggest turning point in the 1980s was his contact with Herbie Hancock.
fact:
- Produced “Future Shock” (1983)
- Created “Rockit,” an early global hit that introduced DJ scratch.
- Establishing a fusion of Turntablism and electro/jazz
- Supporting the global spread of electro-hip hop culture
This work is said to be “a symbol of breaking down the boundaries between 80s pop and underground.”
3. Dub’s Successor: Material “One Down” (1982)
Laswell’s sound has a strong affinity for Jamaican dub.
fact:
- Appointed Martin Bisi as engineer
- Album known for being the first recorded by Whitney Houston (“Memories”)
- Guest appearances by Bernard Fowler, Nona Hendryx, Archie Shepp and others
- Introducing dub techniques (reverberation, repetition, subtraction) to rock/funk/pop
Laswell has established himself as a ““producer, performer, and editor.’’
4. Reorganization of world music: Connecting Africa to Asia
Laswell’s “Compilation of World Music” differs from commercial world music; It will proceed as an artist-led “recomposition of acoustic culture.”
Key facts:
- Recording and editing work of Fela Kuti
- Collaboration with Indian musicians such as Shankar, L. Shankar, Tabla Beat Science
- Gambian griot’s Foday Musa Suso and activities (Mandingo)
- Promoting the fusion of African percussion instruments, jazz, and electro
- Formed the base of Axiom label (1989~)
5. Integration of noise and jazz: Last Exit (1986–1988)
In the late 1980s, Laswell participated in Last Exit, a project that could be considered a symbol of “subversive jazz.”
fact:
- Members: Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Bill Laswell
- A band that represents the pinnacle of free jazz and noise
- Mainly live recording
- Laswell functions as a “structural control” rather than a base
6. 80’s Bill Laswell Network Map
7. 1980s Bill Laswell Major Works List
■ 1980–1984
- 1980: Material early EP
- 1981: “Memory Serves”
- 1982: “One Down”
- 1983: Herbie Hancock “Future Shock”
- 1984: “Sound-System”
■ 1985–1989
- 1985: Produced “Album” by Public Image Ltd.
- 1986: Last Exit started
- 1987: Sly & Robbie “Rhythm Killers”
- 1988: Herbie Hancock “Perfect Machine”
- 1989: Axiom label preparation period
8. Laswell’s acoustic techniques in the 1980s: The substance of Deconstruction
8-1. Editing = Composition
- Extensive use of tape editing, sampling, and reduction
- Build new songs by combining different session materials
- Built around Dub’s method (reverberation/fader operation)
8-2. Cross-cultural assimilation
- Treat jazz, African music, electro, and rock as “equivalent materials”
- Parallelize major/underground
8-3. Base = Structure framework
- Drone-like persistence
- Connection with percussion instruments and noise
- Guide the overall direction to minimalism
9. 80s Bill Laswell Timeline
10. Conclusion: Bill Laswell “dismantled the 80s”
“Deconstruction of the 80s” by Bill Laswell & Friends On the other side of the gorgeous production typical of the 80s, It is a multicultural, editorial and experimental sonic rearrangement.
- World Music Editor
- Successor of the Dub
- Free Jazz Updater
- The connection point between pop and underground
- The engineer who turned the studio into an “instrument”
The “deconstruction and reconstruction” that Laswell and others attempted in the 1980s was They formed the foundation of current club music, ambient, experimental, and world fusion.
