Bill Laswell Quotations

People are afraid of things they don't understand. They don't know how to relate. It threatens their security, their existence, their career, image.

In all the music that deals with experimental repetition, drum and bass, dub, various kinds of house music, there's always been a quality of atmosphere and ambience.

If you listen to really deep ambient records that don't move too much, very still records, long after those records are finished, you might find yourself listening for hours to the sound of the room.

Miles Davis fully embraced possibilities and delved into it. He was criticized heavily from the jazz side. He was supposed to be part of a tradition, but he didn't consider himself part of a tradition.

People who play conventional music are threatened by electronica and don't consider it to be as valuable as what they do.

Sound comes out of a life experience.

What I'm dealing with is sound. I don't pretend to be dealing with music. I'm just dealing with sound elements, textures and sounds.

Records are just moments of achievement. They're like receipts for work done. Time goes on and people keep playing music.

I put projects together. I put people together.

Ambient means the natural center or atmosphere of a space. All music has that in it- a space or center. I think it just means the atmosphere or what defines the environment of sound and maybe removing the more destructive, harsh elements and harder rhythmic elements and you get down to the stillness that's inherent. There's an ambient quality in every sound. You may have to enhance that to hear it or bring it out in a different way but there is that in every environmental sound.