It's easy to round up an all-star backing band when your husband is genre-hopping super-producer Bill Laswell. And indeed, this album features contributions from Ustad Sultan Khan, Karsh Kale, Foday Musa Suso, Nils Petter Molvaer, and Bernie Worrell, among others, with Laswell thumping the bass and manning the boards. But it wouldn't be much at all without the passionate vocals of Gigi (profiled in our April ussue) penetrating the music and floating above it all, calm and focused as an eagle. Under-publicized by an imploding label, Gold & Wax deserved far more attention than it got. Dig it up.
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