Bill Laswell is a prolific experimental musician and a cornerstone of the underground New York music scene. Between his roles as musician, label head and producer Laswell's fingerprints are on hundreds of albums, with many bearing his signature fusion of funk and dub with punk energy, though his recordings have ranged through jazz, Indian music and hip-hop.
Born in 1955, Laswell started out as a guitarist but made an early switch to bass. He cut his teeth playing in funk bands in the Detroit area before moving to New York in the late 1970s. There, he founded the group Material and made it a home for his wide-ranging, experimental musical outpourings. On a commercial level, Laswell broke out when he produced and co-wrote Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit'. Through the '80s Laswell's production talents were lent to artists including Mick Jagger, Nona Hendryx and Laurie Anderson, while as a performer he was involved with the likes of Massacre, Deadline and Last Exit.
In the '90s he was in charge of the Axiom label and co-founded Subharmonic, shifting his output to ambient dub in the form of Divination and Automaton. Material, meanwhile, shifted its output to experimental hip-hop, while another project of Laswell's, Praxis, put out funk-metal.
In the 21st century Laswell began incorporating traditional Indian music into his ouvre and also got involved with drum 'n bass.
