Sound System
When Herbie Hancock'sSound Systemwas released in 1984, critics slammed it as a commercially driven, derivative follow-up toFuture Shockand its hit single "Rockit." Hancock's jazz audience, on the other hand, just slammed it, period. Remastered with one bonus remix and an unrevealing interview with producerBill Laswell, this reissue offers the chance to listen toSound Systemoutside of its original 1980s context and reveals it as a more interesting release than was given credit at the time. Critics certainly had a point when they calledSound Systema rip-off of its predecessor. The opening "Hardrock" in particular sounds like a conscious attempt at duplicating "Rockit," from its electronic drum programming to its synthesizer melody and turntable scratching. But elsewhere on the album, Hancock and Laswell's crew of conspirators (which include many of the same musicians involved in the latter's experimentalMaterialalbums from the same period) get into areas that are more far-reaching than anything onFuture Shock. The most welcome addition is West African harpistFoday Musa Suso, whose beautiful kora and balophone textures inject "Metal Beat," "Junku," and the title track with world-fusion flavors. There's alsoWayne Shorter, whose lyricon (a cousin of the soprano saxophone) graces "Metal Beat" and "Karabali," and percussionist Ayb Dieng, whose talking drum serves to enhance Laswell's industrial-tinged production.--Ezra Gale