Search - Bill Laswell :: Asana OHM Shanti

For being one of the edgier musicians out there, bassist and producer Bill Laswell has had a long time relationship with things new age, drawing upon spiritual as much as musical traditions from across the world, including India, Africa, and Bali. Albums in his Divination and Sacred Systems series all speak to alternate belief systems and are rife with religious imagery. Despite that, he's avoided the new age scarlet letter and maintained a reputation as an avant-garde provocateur. You can hear why on Asana's Ohm Shanti, Vol. 4. Although a title like that gets him placed in the front bin of the new age section, the music is prototypical Laswell, full of relentless grooves and dub bass lines that throb like a brothel in heat. Indian singers, including Kiran Ahluwalia, Ustad Sultan Khan, Fulguni Shah, and Asha Puthli, intone hymns to Shiva on expansive tracks you won't hear in a Hindu temple. Karsh Kale joins Laswell on most of the album, syncing up his tabla drums with Laswell's menacing grooves. There's a bit of Laswell's slapdash approach here and tracks like the title piece tend to go on too long. But texturally expansive atmospheres with ululating melodies ricocheting across the insistent grooves like kamikaze fighters make Ohm Shanti a compelling journey. That is, until the last track, a rendition of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun," which is uncharacteristically straight and cheesy for Laswell and longtime associate Robert Musso, who plays guitar. Excepting that, Ohm Shanti propels you on an Indian dance floor of the imagination. --John Diliberto