Bill Laswell has made a career out of driving scribes crazy. How? Well, for starters, by putting out music that renders most conventional analysis kind of obsolete. Laswell projects regularly send you running back to the dictionary, or set you to poring over some of those old undergrad creative writing papers for descriptive inspiration. Sacred System Chapter Two (XOIR RUSCD8233 51;07), is another sonically immolating (FYI: sophomore year, second semester) a gob of primordial dub that is infinitely more fun to listen to than write about. Laswell and collaborators Graham Haynes and percussionist Bill Buchen hint at a lot of different areas: The drum-n-bassy “Anubis” and “Akapan” allow Haynes room to re-fertilize some of the sonic territory Miles plowed with his electric bands. But the best moments come when all lock into the slow-sexer “Akapana,” the sludgy centerpiece to one of the most epiphanous dub records in a long time.
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