Bass The Final Frontier
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash 

Bass...The Final Frontier

No, this post is not about independent label music, just about several musicians I admire and to post something a little different from my usual....

The Big Bass Combo

Bill Laswell teamed with Jah Wobble, two bass playing legends. This track is called 6th Chamber from the album 'Radioaxiom - A Dub Transmission'. Possibly a bit more 'World' than 'Dub', but still very good....

The track list for the album is:

  • Subcode
  • Alsema Dub
  • Virus B
  • Orion
  • 6th Chamber
  • Alam Dub
  • Second Sight

Have a listen to the brilliant track 6th Chamber at the above link.

The album also featured a plethora of other contributing musicians including Sly Dunbar on drums.

Bass The Final Frontier
It was released in 2001 on the Palm Pictures Label, a record label set up by Chris Blackwell the man who started off the Island Records Label.
 

World Music Style

 
Generally was well received at the time one critic suggesting not so much of a dub album but a whole mix of World Music Styles. It is certainly fairly eclectic and also very ambient and mellow (unlike some of the other material I feature on this site). I personally like it, but then I have always been a bit of a Jah Wobble fan. I think both he and Laswell were fans of World Music as well hence the album's sounds. Have a listen to the style on the track Alsema Dub. You can catch a review of the album on the Jazz Music Archives.
 
I originally first caught the track 'Alsema Dub' on a compilation album by 'The Ministry Of Sound' called 'The Karma Collection' back in 2003 and have it still at home on CD. Check out Discogs for the full track listing. It is a good album as was the first one in the 'collection', which I also have and features a wide diverse spectrum of music.
 
The Karma Collection

Big Bill's Link to PiL

Bill Laswell, as well as playing bass also worked with some of the greats such as Brian Eno, Ginger Baker and many jazz influenced artists. He also produced records as well as playing and some of the list of bands he has produced for include PiL, Motorhead, Sly and Robbie, Iggy Pop and The Ramones.

For PiL's 1986 'Album' he advised John Lydon on session and 'trusted' musicians, this included names such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stevie Vai and Shankar (who also played on Echo and The Bunnymen's album Crocodiles in '83). The album spun off PiL's high charting single 'Rise' which reached #11 in the U.K. Charts of the day, the actual album didn't do too bad either making it to #14.

Memoirs Of A Geezer

Catch PiL with Jah's bass-line doing 'Death Disco' below:

I still love the blacked out tooth, it makes me laugh every time I see this TOTP clip😂 evidently he wanted to 'muck about' as soon as he knew he was going on to Top Of The Pops and decided to visit the makeup department to see if they could do the job...and by the looks of it they did him proud! Catch him on the link with Danny Baker at BBC 5 Live. To be honest the subject of the song was really quite sad as it was about the death of John Lydon's mother, not really laughable stuff, but none the less the song itself reached the highs of #20 in the UK Singles Chart of the day. Both this track and their track 'Public Image' are two of my all time favourites and properly display John Wardle (Jah Wobble) as an amazing bass player.

He is quite a clever chap in his own right the list of artists this man has worked with is quite astonishing. He wasn't always so good and in his early days got into quite a bit of trouble with the demon 'booze'. He quit the drinking and also quite surprisingly also quit music for a while working for quite a few years on London Underground and has studied part time to gain a degree in Humanities from Birbeck College in London as well as writing his autobiography 'Memoirs of a Geezer: Music, Life, Mayhem' in 2009.

Video Sources

JLBen@dailymotion

[email protected]

Photo Thanks To

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash 

Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash 

Karma Collection Photo Discogs

Info Sources Thanks To

Wkipedia, Discogs, Radio 5 Live, Jazz Music Archives