Second Nature is a typical Bill Laswell excursion into the murkiest depths of ambient experimentalism, meaning there's no danceable beats, no hummable grooves, and virtually no firm melodic ground for listeners to grab hold of.
That said, patient listening will be rewarded in due time.
The 28-minute "Synthetic Forest" opens with a whispered hint of a distant soundscape -- gurgles, blips, and bleeps that are almost, but not quite, there.
You're 12 minutes in before being startled by a recognizable beat on the horizon, 14 minutes before Laswell's subterranean bass appears like a lumbering rhino rumbling in your direction.
This is some seriously crazy, experimental stuff; a bit too subtle for casual listeners, but an interesting ride for those passengers willing to ride it out to the end of the line.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Synthetic Forest | Bill Laswell, Atom Heart, Tetsu Inoue | Play | 28:41 | 65 MB | 108 MB |
| 2 | Green Paste | Bill Laswell, Atom Heart, Tetsu Inoue | Play | 16:59 | 38 MB | 50 MB |
| 3 | Artificial Seaside | Bill Laswell, Atom Heart, Tetsu Inoue | Play | 16:29 | 37 MB | 61 MB |
| 4 | Landing Circle | Bill Laswell, Atom Heart, Tetsu Inoue | Play | 06:25 | 14 MB | 16 MB |
| 68 mins | 157 MB | |||||
| 68 mins | 237 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Atom Heart | Performer, Primary Artist |
| 2 | Tetsu Inoue | Performer, Primary Artist |
| 3 | Bill Laswell | Bass, Primary Artist |
| 4 | Layng Martine, Jr. | Assistant Engineer, Digital Editing |
| 5 | Dave McKean | Cover Art |
| 6 | Robert Musso | Engineer |
| 7 | Aldo Sampieri | Design |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |