Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974 is a 1998 album by Bill Laswell, released through Columbia Records. Working from the premise that Davis' fusion albums were themselves heavily studio-edited, Laswell secured access to the original master tapes and recut the music himself. Laswell aimed to create a more coherently-structured work, remixing the recordings to bring influential rhythm elements to the fore. Averting They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, Panthalassa met a mostly positive response.
Tracklist:
- "In a Silent Way / Shhh/Peaceful / It's About That Time" - 15:20
- "Black Satin / What If / Agharta Prelude Dub" - 16:06
- "Rated X / Billy Preston" - 14:34
- "He Loved Him Madly" - 13:38
Black Satin tropes:
- Ambient Music: Davis' "Get Up With It" was famously described as "music to fill a room", and Laswell plays up this aspect of the music for all it's worth, turning up tablas and electronic instrumentation where possible.
- Compilation Re-release
- Epic Rocking: Even vastly shortened Fusion!Miles is still very lengthy. The album consists of four fifteen-minute tracks.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: "He Loved Him Madly". The original piece was Miles' tribute to then-recently diseased Duke Ellington.
- Idiosyncratic Album Theming: The album title corresponds with Davis' Live Album theming - where "Agharta" and "Pangaea" denoted mythological continents, "Panthalassa" is named after the ocean of the same mythology.
- Instrumentals: All tracks.
- One-Word Title: "Panthalassa".
- Remix Album: Rearranging the originals is the entire album concept.
- Shout-Out: The album title references Panthalassa, the vast global ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.
- The Stoic: "In A Silent Way", "Shhh/Peaceful".
- Vagueness Is Coming: "It's About That Time".
- "X" Makes Anything Cool: For instance: naming an instrumental track "Rated X".
