Soup

AMG Review of Soup

Sean Westergaard
All Music Guide

Given their respective reputations and prodigious output, it's a bit surprising that Soup is the first actual meeting of Bill Laswell and Otomo Yoshihide. Forming something of an ad hoc power trio with longtime Yoshihide associate Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, they offer up four longish tunes with plenty of Laswell's slippery bass and Yoshihide's feedback guitar (turntables appear only briefly). They range from plodding jams to nearly ambient, all painted with dark tones with some dub effects appearing toward the end of the disc. The playing is all quite good, the recording is excellent, and Laswell and Yoshihide get some great sounds out of their instruments, but one can't help but feel that this is something of a tossed-off recording that these guys could probably pull off in their sleep.