SXL - 1988 - Into The Outlands

SXL

1988

Into The Outlands

01. Voice Of Thunder

02. Speed Of Light

Drums – Ronald Shannon Jackson

Percussion – Aiyb Dieng, Samulnori

Violin – Shankar

Recorded live in Osaka, Tokyo and Fukuoka, Japan, July & August 1987.

In the late 1980s, when musical borders were being cheerfully ignored by a certain breed of restless producer and improviser, Bill Laswell assembled one of his more improbable traveling circuses under the name SXL. The short-lived ensemble was less a fixed band than a temporary collision of continents and traditions, and its second live document, Into the Outlands, captured in Japan during the summer of 1987 and released the following year, remains a joyful, slightly unhinged monument to that spirit of reckless cross-pollination. Where many fusion projects of the era settled for polite global tourism, SXL simply piled everything onto the stage and let the rhythms fight it out.

Laswell, the Illinois-born bassist, producer, and serial collaborator who had already made his name with Material, Last Exit, and a dizzying array of sessions, had long been obsessed with the idea that funk grooves, free improvisation, and non-Western percussion could share the same oxygen. By 1987 he was looking specifically for a way to marry the elastic post-Miles Davis pulse of his own projects with something denser and older. The solution arrived in the form of SamulNori, the celebrated South Korean percussion quartet whose name literally means “four objects play.” Founded in the late 1970s by Kim Duk-soo and drawing on centuries-old pungmul folk traditions, SamulNori specialized in the interlocking thunder of the kkwaenggwari (small gong), jing (large gong), janggu (hourglass drum), and buk (barrel drum). Their music was ceremonial, shamanic, and physically overwhelming, a far cry from the downtown New York lofts where Laswell usually operated. Around this core he gathered three more kindred spirits: Indian violinist and vocalist L. Shankar, already famous for his work with Shakti and John McLaughlin and for inventing a ten-string double violin that could sound like an entire string section arguing with itself; Senegalese percussionist Aïyb Dieng, a master of the talking drum and a frequent Laswell associate whose polyrhythms added West African inflection; and Ronald Shannon Jackson, the explosive free-jazz and harmolodic drummer whose Decoding Society and Last Exit work had already proven he could make a trap kit sound like a small army. Ryuichi Sakamoto was originally scheduled to join but dropped out before the Japanese tour, leaving the ensemble as a five-headed (or rather multi-headed) beast of bass, violin, and wall-to-wall percussion.

The group’s music grew out of that deliberate mismatch of influences. Laswell’s deep, dub-tinged electric bass and Jackson’s free-funk attack provided a Western rhythmic chassis, while Shankar’s electric violin floated Indian raga-like lines and drones above the fray. Dieng’s African percussion and SamulNori’s Korean battery supplied the density, creating layers of polyrhythm that could shift from ceremonial procession to full-on sonic avalanche without warning. The result was not polite world-music fusion but something closer to a controlled riot, where centuries-old Korean shaman rhythms suddenly found themselves locked into conversation with post-Milesian funk and free improvisation. It was the sort of meeting that only Laswell, with his appetite for the improbable, would have thought to arrange.

Into the Outlands was released on Celluloid Records in the United States (catalog CELD 5017) and on Enemy Records in Germany (EMY 106). Celluloid, the French-American label founded by Jean Karakos, had by then become a legendary clearinghouse for no-wave, early hip-hop, African music, and Laswell’s own experiments; Enemy, co-founded by Laswell and Michael Knuth, specialized in the more abrasive free-jazz and experimental edges of the same scene. The album consists of just two side-long pieces, both credited to the collective: “Voice of Thunder” (roughly twenty-two minutes) and “Speed of Light” (slightly longer). Recorded live in Osaka, Tokyo, and Fukuoka during July and August 1987, the performances were engineered by Billy Youdelman, produced and edited by longtime Laswell collaborator Robert Musso at Quad Recording Studios in New York, and mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk. The production is clean enough to let every layer of percussion breathe yet dense enough to convey the physical impact of six or seven players hammering away at once. There is no studio polish trying to tame the chaos; the live energy is left largely intact, with only the necessary editing to shape two coherent long-form pieces from the Japanese concerts.

Musically the album is a study in controlled escalation and seamless cultural handover. “Voice of Thunder” begins with Laswell’s quartet (bass, Jackson’s drums, Dieng’s percussion, and Shankar’s violin) establishing a spacious, post-Milesian groove that feels almost contemplative for the first ten minutes or so. Shankar’s electric violin weaves melodic threads that nod toward raga without ever settling into pure classical form. Then, almost without warning, SamulNori claim the rhythmic center stage, their tuned gongs and drums introducing a different sense of time and ceremony. The transition is one of the album’s conceptual triumphs: Laswell’s free-funk suddenly finds itself answering to rhythms that are centuries older, and the two languages begin to interlock rather than merely coexist. Jackson, never one to back down from a challenge, matches the Korean ensemble’s intensity without simply overpowering it. “Speed of Light” reverses the order, opening with SamulNori in full ceremonial flight, their interlocking patterns building a hypnotic, almost trance-like foundation. Only later do Laswell, Jackson, Dieng, and Shankar join, the Western instruments slipping into the Korean framework until the whole ensemble is riding a shared wave of rhythmic delirium. The effect is exhilarating and slightly disorienting, as if a downtown New York loft session had been teleported into a Korean village festival and both sides decided the results were better than either expected.

The cover art, credited to Thi-Linh Le, matches the music’s sense of crossing into unfamiliar territory. The imagery is abstract and somewhat stark, suggesting distant landscapes or geometric forms that refuse easy identification, an appropriate visual analogue for music that deliberately steps outside familiar genre maps. Design contributions on some editions are also credited to Yoko Yamabe of Randesign, giving the packaging a clean, slightly enigmatic late-1980s aesthetic that neither exoticizes the Korean element nor hides behind generic fusion graphics.

Critical reception at the time and in subsequent reissues has been consistently warm among those who encountered the record. Brian Olewnick, writing for AllMusic, described it as delivering “sheer, joyous sonic overload,” praising the way Laswell managed to connect his free-funk approach with Korean traditions that were centuries old, and calling the album a fine disc that ranks among the best of Laswell’s late-1980s projects. The Japanese concerts that generated the material had already drawn large and enthusiastic crowds (reports put the combined audience for key shows near 30,000), and Jazz Forum had earlier praised the group’s ability to balance free improvisation, time-playing, and ethnic elements in a way that felt genuinely new. Over the years the album has been reissued several times, including Japanese and Portuguese editions and a later digital release under Laswell’s own imprint, finding a steady cult audience among fans of world-jazz, experimental percussion, and Laswell’s broader catalog.

Its legacy is that of a successful one-off experiment rather than the start of a lasting band. SXL existed only for the 1987 Japanese tour and the two resulting live albums; SamulNori went on to record their own Laswell-produced album Record of Changes the following year, while the individual members continued their separate trajectories. Yet Into the Outlands still stands as one of the more convincing demonstrations that deep rhythmic traditions from different continents can meet on equal terms without either side watering itself down. In an era full of well-meaning but often diluted “world music” projects, SXL simply opened the door, let the thunder in, and trusted the musicians to find common ground. The result remains exhilarating, a little strange, and stubbornly alive.