AUTOMATON

AUTOMATON
DUB TERROR EXHAUST (1994)
320 KBPS

There's no doubt that the psychedelic grooves of dub have been best explored by Jamaican legends like King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry, but in the mid- to late-'90s, American bassist/producer Bill Laswell was easily the genre's most prolific proponent. With Automaton, a group that also features Blind Idiot God's Gabe Katz, DJ Spooky, and iconic reggae drummer Sly Dunbar, Laswell put forth one of his strongest dub efforts to date. "Astral Altar (The Gateway of Legba)" opens the album with a bit of atmospheric ambience that dissolves into a typically mind-altering, bottom-heavy dub groove. The album's best track, "Asiyah Dub (Blinding the Starry Eyes of God," works Indian tabla into the heady mix, creating a trance-inducing sense of spaciness that caresses your mind like a milk bath. One of the more effective experimental dub records of the '90s, Dub Terror Exhaust is also notable for being Laswell's first collaboration with then-unknown DJ Spooky (a.k.a. the Alchemist), who creates a promising mixture of spacey ambience and delicious futuristic funk on "The Terran Invasion of Alpha Centauri Year 2794."

1. Astral Altar - The Gateway Of Legba
2. Asiyah Dub - Blinding The Starry Eyes Of God
3. The Terran Invasion Of Alpha Centaurai Year 2794
4. The Black Meat - Deconstruction Of The Bebel-Tower Of Reason