On 20 June 2016, bassist and dark-matter stylist Bill Laswell convened the latest incarnation of his Method of Defiance outfit at the Roulette performance space in Brooklyn to celebrate the Downtown Music Gallery’s 25th anniversary. Joining Laswell were Dr. Israel (beats, vocals), Garrison Hawk (vocals), D.J. Logic (turntable, laptop), Josh Werner (bass, keyboards), Graham Haynes (cornet), and Guy Licata (drums), along with special guest Mike Sopko (guitar). The latter’s avant-leaning tendencies threw fistfuls of sparks at the audience, surpassed in heat only by Hawk’s incendiary spit and Laswell’s embers. Yet behind them was an invisible ninth member whose contributions were palpable throughout—the reflection of some connective spirit that drew everyone into the same line of purpose.

Ever at the core of whatever they attend, Laswell and his bass were a binary force of reckoning. Together they prepped the space with characteristic sagacity. Werner’s electronic detailing gave first indications of landscape, discernible though not yet solid until Licata’s drum ‘n’ bass vibes hit the ground running. His wake left an open wound in the earth, revealing an igneous groove, while Haynes sprouted a tree for every leaf burned by the force of the environmental disruption.

In this, the first of eight songs, innovations and comforts bled themselves in search of hybrid hemoglobin. Israel’s vocals, wrapped in heavy echo, proved that the Dr. was very much in the house when he negotiated crunchy dub textures as might a chameleon revel in a rainbow. And when the other wordsmith took to the stage, showing that hawks are every bit as cunning on the ground as in the air, he tempered flames with descriptions of raw deals and rawer emotions.

Sopko’s sere guitar kept things randomized, and only served to emphasize the importance of every utterance, so that whenever a mouth was opened, so too were listener’s minds to receive its wisdom. Some of the most gripping portions of the set, in fact, found Israel and Hawk involved in deeply semantic transactions, each a firebrand of his own design, sandwiched between gray destruction and lavender rebuilding. All the while, Laswell’s bass undermined the fragile house of convention.

Not all was so apocalyptic, as ambience prevailed along the way. Whether in Werner’s triadic lullabies or the bandleader’s swooping improvisations, such tenderer moments were calls to arms for those without them. During one memorable tune, Logic intertwined griot sampling with Laswell’s harmonic equations while Haynes channeled messages from seemingly nonhuman sources.

At one point, Werner traded keys for bass (even the sun needs to recover beyond the horizon), provoking comparable head nods through a haze of guitar marginalia (Sopko resolving monumental tensions with Buckethead-like release) and tight drumming. And as Israel dropped his champion’s badge in the pond to distort the face of one who needed it not for validation, the risk of it all paid its ultimate dividends through an apparent axiom: A strong core, no matter how distorted the surface surrounding it, compromises for no one.