Hallucination Engine

Longtime fans of this urban funk / electronic collective should now be aware of the kindred spirits inhabiting the Material world. Your pilots on the transport powered by the 'Hallucination Engine' hail from disparate corners of the globe and from genres as radically equidistant. But, they intuitively communicate using the many dialects of the language of world-beat. In bringing together an ensemble of musicians (Jonas Hellborg, Wayne Shorter, Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, Trilok Gurtu, Shankar, Zakir Hussain, ad infinitum) whose credits are encyclopedic in their scope and whose musical senses stretch the boundaries of their respective "genres", Bill Laswell has fashioned perhaps the most telling hybrid to yet emerge from the foggy regions of contemporary music.

'Hallucination Engine' is sensual ethno-psychedelia from the topographic theater. Points on the audiological compass are easily recognizable - Shorter's signature sax riff on the opening "Black Light"; the Shankar / Gurtu liquid dub of "Mantra"; William Burroughs' throaty streams-of-consciousness proclaiming "Words of Advice" over slippery Laswell-funk. Material even covers Weather Report's "Cucumber Slumber", with a Middle Eastern twist and no beat amiss.