Herbie Hancock - Sound System (2013) HDtracks

When Herbie Hancock's Sound System was released in 1984, critics slammed it as a commercially driven, derivative follow-up to Future Shock and 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 producer Bill Laswell, this reissue offers the chance to listen to Sound System outside 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 called Sound System a 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 experimental Material albums from the same period) get into areas that are more far-reaching than anything on Future Shock. The most welcome addition is West African harpist Foday Musa Suso, whose beautiful kora and balophone textures inject "Metal Beat," "Junku," and the title track with world-fusion flavors. There's also Wayne 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