Customer Reviews

Sacred System Dub: Book of Entrance - Chapter 1

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The music on this album is a perfect blend of techno beats and Middle Eastern rhythm. You won't find a lot of variation here --- the songs are supposed to put you in a trance, so they are repetitive. Every time I listen to it, I play it over and over for hours; Laswell should have stretched it out to cover the full disc. This is as good as Laswell's RADIOAXIOM and HALLUCINATION ENGINE.

Outstanding synthesis of spacy dub sounds and manic jungle beats. Bill Laswell can do no wrong - his excellent production give this album a sheen of perfection that is, unfortunately, indescribable. Essential.

I enjoy this while I work. It's smooth and easy to listen to. Good late night mood music. I have gotten a lot of complements on the disc.

I love anything by Bill Laswell but this is my favorite work of his, and definitely one of my most frequently played albums. This is truly dub, but there are so many other elements going on within this music that it really surpasses explanation or categorization. It's moody and deep, and produces some incredible mindscapes. Even at its most mellow moments it is still fraught with kinetic energy, swirling into multiple climaxes. A combination of electronic music and instrumental music, the bass playing is multi-faceted. It was recorded in such an enhancing and complimentary manner that it showcases Laswell's exceptional talent on the bass guitar. He plays bass like a lead instrument. No other album has ever taken me deeper into such profound mental imagery as this one...I never tire of it.

Clearly Laswell wanted to genuflect at the feet of King Tubby and Lee Perry, and he creates music that is part imitation of them and part extension of what they had done (there is at least a small amount of cross-in electronic sound). If you like King Tubby, you'll like this.

Laswell's secret weapon here is his bass. He drips fluid and funky bass parts the way Charlie Parker used to drip saxophone runs. The bass playing lifts this record up and makes it something at least a little special.

I've got several Laswell dub outings, sometimes he's brilliant, sometimes not, in this case the tunes really rock. One of the most played CDs in my collection.

This is intense music, but don't be expecting a King-Tubby style rootdown. There are elements of electronic music throughout and some of the tracks are more drum n' bass than dub. Still worth it though, really spacy trippy stuff.

Prolific and polished, Bill Laswell has put out dozens of albums since Book Of Entrance -- some great, some mediocre, some that I try to forget. Yet all of them have been produced to the same musically attentive, high degree. The man knows his way around a studio.

It's the spark of creativity that makes or breaks them, and in that regard Book Of Entrance hasn't aged so well. It's the typical Laswell brew of loping bass ostinato, gently clattering drum-n-bass rhythms, instrumental dropouts, and dubby sound effect echoes; yet where later Sacred System releases like Nagual Site showed brilliant variation, Book Of Entrance plateaus at the same trance-y mid tempo and just sits there.

Is that the point? Maybe it is, but through the retrospective eye it is another unfortunately formulaic Laswell album. There are some beautifully constructed, intricate rhythms delivered with passionless, tinkly electronic keyboards and dynamic-less percussion. The best compliments I can come up with for the album are: it is studied, professional, and delivered with skill and aplomb. It has absolutely no dirt under its nails, though.

If you're hooked on him and can't get enough, go ahead and pick this one up -- but I find much deeper, lasting listener satisfaction in the aforementioned Nagual Site, the criminally hard-to-find Nicky Skopelitis album Ekstasis, or even the still-turgid (but exponentially better) Sacred System: Chapter Two.

I would like to give special notice to the beautifully-crafted cover art of Book Of Entrance, executed by Sneak Attack, however. I bet the LP sleeve is stunning.

Laswell does it yet again. Reggie lovers, dub lovers, music lovers: my advise is that you at least listen to this album and chapter two. 5 stars is just the begining of a discription.