Sharrock was one of the few late 1960s players Hendrix admired and whom (after Hendrix fell out with Miles Davis over women and musical notation) Miles used on the brilliant fusion album Jack Johnson.Having Sly Stone on Funkcronomicon is also apt, as Hendrix was booked for a jamming session with Sly & The Family Stone the night he died in London in 1970 Laswell thinks it all came together pretty well “It’s an idea which existed for many years When it came together, Hendrix was the focal point. Last year, part of this track could be heard on another Laswell compilation called Axiom Ambient, whose “Peace” combined Hendrixalia by Hazel and another guitarist Sonny Sharrock. On Funkcronomicon, Laswell’s catches Hendrix’s spirit perfectly on a track titled “Pray My Soul”, a “Little Wing”-styled ballad sumptuously rendered by the late Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel. In a recent survey in Q, he praised Hendrix’s debut, Are You Experienced, for its production sound and cited Jimi’s unreleased and un-realised projects with Miles Davis and Gil Evans as some of the most remarkable albums never made.

“I think a lot of the music on this record relates not so much to what people got to know about Hendrix but more to the things he was approaching and trying to do near the end of his life. Not a lot of people were aware of his interests and plans, the kind of projects he was working on when he died. It would have been quite disappointing to rock and roll people that he was playing with jazz musicians like Gil Evans and Rashaan Roland Kirk.”He only scratched the surface of what his music could be, and also didn’t have the opportunity to interface with musicians on a higher level. His attempts to work with Miles Davis and Tony Williams never really blossomed.

If you go back and talk to people who knew him, the most interesting story about Hendrix was happening just at the point of his death. He was going to make a major step in a very different direction to what people expected.”Hendrix is vital to understanding Laswell. It’s a soup – a mind-wrenching, gut-pulling concoction which seems haunted by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. In fact, two tracks – “If Six Was Nine” and “Trumpets & Violins” are credited to the genius of the electric guitar.
One mention of Hendrix and Laswell forgets his session and starts talking. Funkcronomicon basically wraps the best of Laswell’s funk jams with famous musicians like Bootsy Collins and George Clinton of Funkadelic fame, Sly Stone, Maceo Parker (renowned for his work with James Brown) and dub groovers Sly & Robbie into an enormous kaleidoscope where sizzling guitar rock and jungle beats both have a home. He has worked on no less than 200 albums since the late 1970s, the latest, Axiom Funk – Funkcronomicon, being about 25th in a series of records which celebrate, in his own words, “collision music”. In fact, it happens on a regular basis, as Laswell is always in the middle of something.

I’m in the middle of a session…”

This has happened before. Having spent a lot of time with his English record company, Island, setting up a phone connection to his Greenpoint studios in Brooklyn, the irascible Laswell picks up the phone and wonders: “Is this an interview? It’s gonna be really difficult.. Hum… Yet the New York producer and bass player, famous for his work with Mick Jagger, Motorhead and Herbie Hancock, has no interest in promoting his new product. Surprise, surprise – Bill Laswell has a new record coming out Well, Bill Laswell always has a record coming out. until Dolores comes on with her tanks and her guns and her guns and her bombs.In an hour and three quarters the rest of the band have not had one spotlight and are never introduced For such a talented group of musicians, they deserve better.

The only way out of the trap is to take the plunge and dump the singer.. Fergal Lawler’s drumming is so good it seems almost to have its own melody. Mike Hogan’s bass sets a voodooesque mood of expectancy, Noel Hogan’s exquisite guitar gives the song more depth and shading than it ever had on record… The first is called either “Salvation” or “Starvation” – it’s hard to tell. “A www, starvation is here,” wails Dolores, sounding like Audrey Hepburn in the first half of My Fair Lady.The best Cranberries songs are the ones that sound like soundtracks to scenes in TV movies: “You’re So Pretty the Way You Are”, as a bulimic locks herself in the bathroom to vomit; “Never Leave”, as a once loving family abandons a dog they bought for Christmas.For the first minute, it looks like “Zombie”, is going to save the day. Their post-fame release, No Need to Argue, is the musically dumpier “issue” record that spawned the anti-troubles hit “Zombie”, with its classic refrain: “With their tanks and their guns and their guns and their bombs…” The new songs they preview seem to be moving further in the same direction.