Search - Bill Laswell, William S. Burroughs :: Seven Souls

Essential Laswell

Andrew M. Schirmer | Seattle, WA USA | 07/14/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bill Laswell's necrophiliac obsession continues with this funky-tribal release. Take NYC funk, dust it up with crusty 'ol William S. Burroughs (reading from his "The Road to the Western Lands"), and you've got "Seven Souls." Laswell's New Age landscapes are punctuated with the voice of death himself (that ol' raspberry seed in America's teeth!) telling us that "Bah" will lead us to destruction if we follow it. Only Laswell would do something this crazy. But it really holds up. The first track works as kind of a hip-hop-New Age thing...it's the most accessible track, and probably my favourite. Seven Souls" is excellent, and quite funky (if I were to break it out at a literary-type party the floor would be littered with bodies). Everything else is good, excepting a few mixes of "Seven Souls." If you liked Burroughs' collaboration with Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy ("Spare A** Annie"), you should enjoy this. Be warned, though: they're not in the same vein. Burroughs is more cut up and dubbed over, turned down and tripped out--his voice provides more of a tone than a message for the songs, a vehicle for Laswell and his current obsession."