Third and last album from the third stage of the Debile Animal Rayé story. Still based on a strong European folklore music (usually heavily stamped onto Eastern European Circus-like music, this third album failed to take the previous Voix De Surface to a higher level. One must say the Huguenin is not part of this album, and this might be a definitively diminishing factor that could not be filled. Don't get me wrong, if you loved their previous one, you'll still find something to like here, but just not nearly as much. Multi-instrumentalist Rosset is still the leader, but Bratko Bibic's accordion is way too present - and I really don't appreciate accordion. Rossel also let Bibic write roughly a third of the album, and let's face that third is not my favorite either.
Indeed, the album is dragging its feet almost from start to end, with a few jolts of ideas here and there, but those never last long and are too few and rare in between. One must wait for the first real burst (outside the slightly interesting Grand Carré) until the ninth track to get some kind of enthusiastic energy but with the help of the electric guitar and some definitely trickier music a bit out of the ordinary of this album. From that moment, the album seems to pick up a bit more energy: the following Assault and Ba(a)l , the good closing Campagnes and the prophetic Ce Qu'il En Reste (what's left of it) tracks are semi- highlights (but déjà-vu from the previous album).
If you thought you had problems distinguishing RIO from what the Archives call Avant- Prog, things are not about to be simpler if you pick this album up. This project is the second stage of Swiss Momo Rossel and JV Huguenin's (Rio-extraordinaire multi- musician) three-stage musical rocket. After Debile Menthol at the start of the 80's and before L'Ensemble Rayé at the start of the 90's, Nimal is has released three albums, of which this second one is the best-regarded by specialists. Half the album was recorded live in a festival, but you'd have a hard time guessing it, from the quality of the recording but also no public: the odd between tracks spot you hear applause. The live half is much better and livelier than the first studio part. Most likely, this was either two different Vinyls or two separate releases. There are a few new versions of tracks present on their first album.
Just like L'ER, this group uses predominantly acoustic instruments (only a few electric guitars), but the music is much more twisted, much wilder and more challenging for the casual listener. If it could appear that L'ER was a bit light on prog rock contents, Nimal certainly changed that and they sound a bit like a crazier Miriodor crossing Alamaailman Vasarat, the presence of the accordion helping on this last reference. The instrumental music (certainly not described by the album's title) veers from Circus music to atonal (even abstract at times) music to a rather positive (and happy) kind of Univers Zero. Interference Sardine is also not far.
Most of the tracks are quite energetic, some even reaching diabolical and frenetic pace with the cellos going nuts (James River), some even reaching infernal chaos (Animal Triste's start) others are radiant and happy (Le Soleil and La Marelle), but the huge majority of the Rossel-penned tracks are very impressive.
Personally if you ask me, I find Nimal much better than L'ER, even if they will be much less of a cup of tea of your non-prog entourage, but then again as most progheads come from a rock background, chances are that you will not really play L'ER or Nimal to your buddies, but your chances to get laid are better with L'ER. An excellent album, but not one to recommend to newcomers of the Avant/RIO realm, Voix De Surface is Nimal's best shot at Prog history. Haunting and just short of stunning!!!
Created in 1987 by Marcel "Momo" Rossel, founder of experimental Swiss band DÉBILE MENTHOL, NIMAL were a kind of RIO supergroup that brought together an eclectic set of multi-instrumentalists from various avant-garde bands: U.S. artists Tom Cora from SKELETON CREW, CURLEW and Pippin Barnett from ORTHOTONICS, NO SAFETY, CURLEW; Jean-20 Huguenin from DÉBILE MENTHOL and Shirley Hoffman-Wolz from Swiss band L'ENSEMBLE RAYÉ; Slovenian artist Bratko Bibic from BEGNAGRAD, plus many others. Stylistically, they mixed their respective bands' styles with that of first-generation RIO bands (HENRY COW, UNIVERS ZERO, AMLA MAMMAS MANNA). Before their dissolution in 1992, they had toured throughout Europe and Canada and had released three albums.
Propelled by shifting folk-dance rhythms and wonderful sound effects, their style borders on world music. Their material is given a dictinct Eastern European, almost Gypsy flavour through the use of the accordion, bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, cello and various percussion instruments in addition to the usual guitar/keyboards/bass/drum combo. A close comparison would be a slightly more frenzied version of SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA. All of their albums feature relatively short but catchy tunes (a rarity from an RIO band) and plenty of sonic goodies (yes, yodelling CAN be cool!). Of their three albums, "Dis Tanz" is the most varied and energetic but all are worth checking out.
Nimal are described in our Bio as something of a Rio supergroup whose member's various groups were influenced by older bands like Samla Mammas, Univers Zero, and Henry Cow. They were together only about five years but managed to tour and release three acclaimed albums. This debut, which was apparently not released on CD, is said to be not quite as fully realized as the latter two. If true, it blows my mind, because this is some intensely creative music.
"Nimal" is like walking into a snowstorm. At first jarring as the freezing wind blown snow hits your face. But later as you acclimate to it, walking in the winter becomes serene, a little bit of contemplative despite the chaos.
The cacophony of standard rock instruments and exotic ones are seemingly being crashed randomly by children, but as with other good avant releases, a little patience and a few more plays will pay off. The most ambitious track is the 10-minute opener entitled "La semaine des quatre jeudis" which is all over the map, sometimes it feels like an insane wedding soundtrack, very cinematic. The odd feel is courtesy of the hurdy-gurdy and the bouzouki employed by Rossel. Equal measures menacing, exhilarating, confusing, and dramatic, the piece feels like a great drunk one moment and the hangover the next.
I also enjoyed "Animal Triste" where there are wordless choral vocals sampled over the intense noise. It's like a life boat. The same with the cello on the closer "Maligne" which is quite the departure. Its calming strokes and deliberate pace nicely bring one in from the snowstorm and allow you to sink in front of the fireplace.
While not my favorite album by any means, "Nimal" is the kind of discovery I still enjoy. It's wonderful something so rare can now be heard online by the next generation. Avant and Rio fans will love this group.
Philippe Vincendeau / alto saxophone, soprano saxophone
Christian Robard / drums, vibraphone, xylophone
Bernard Nicolas / flute, soprano saxophone
Alain Gaubert / guitar, bass guitar
Claudie Nicolas / vocals
This French band according to the liner notes was influenced by HENRY COW, ART ZOYD and the free Jazz movement.They liked to blend "Composition and improvisation, texts and Free-Jazz, vocals and instrumentation". Christian Robard the drummer / vibes player "Brought to life a series of expansive musical landscapes, wild songs and atmospheric scenes in which the tension slowly builds to a climax before bursting like a bubble. Breaking points, abrupt theme changes and the use of the voice as an instrument all feature heavily". To my ears this isn't Zeuhl but more in the Avant style of things, although the high pitched and melancholic female vocals along with the dark mood maybe brings that flavour to the table.Two of the guys play sax but one of them is often playing the flute.This re-issue was mastered by Udi Koomran.
"Catastrophe" features female vocal melodies and some insane flute passages in this short into to the album. What a start ! "Repos Blanc" is also fairly short and laid back with more female vocal melodies, a beat, sax and flute. "Tape Tape" opens with female vocals, cymbals and guitar with the flute arriving before a minute.The sax comes in when the vocals stop. She's back a minute later as she and the sound become more passionate. It's melancholic before 4 minutes as it settles back some. "Pellerin" has these high pitched vocal melodies with intricate sounds to start. It's pretty intense really. A change after a minute to a dirge-like soundscape with vocals.The flute sounds amazing before 2 1/2 minutes as it replaces the vocals.The sax then replaces the flute after 3 1/2 minutes.Vocals are back and then we get vocal melodies 6 minutes in.Insanity after 7 minutes to end it.
"L'oiseau Fou" starts out with vibes and bass then the sax joins in. Drums and vocal melodies after 2 minutes.Vocals and flute follow.The drums are prominant. Man this lady can sing. Mournful sax as the vocals fade away 5 1/2 minutes in. "La Mer" opens with the flute and vocals standing out as the sax and flute add depth. A change before 3 1/2 minutes as it stops and an uptempo vocal led section takes over. It settles after 5 minutes. Vibes to the fore with sax as the vocals continue. It's actually doom-like with drums and vocals.Vocals stop then a change after 8 minutes as the tempo picks up. An incredible soundscape ! Dissonant dual sax and throbbing bass lines here while the drumming kills. Amazing sound right to the end.
One of the more obscure zeuhl outfits that rode the wave of Magma in the early 80s alongside other French acts such as Dün, Eskaton and Archaïa was the short-lived NOA which blurred many distinctions between zeuhl, avant-prog and jazz-fusion. Virtually forgotten, this true obscurity from Point-Saint-Martin, France consisted of Alain Gaubert (guitar, bass), Bernard Nicolas (flute, saxophone), Claudie Nicolas (vocals), Philippe Vincendeau (saxophone) and Christian Robard (drums, xylophone, vibraphone) and was one of the more original bands to be tagged with the zeuhl tag owing more to the Rock In Opposition sensibilities of Art Zoyd and Henry Cow than to fellow countryman Christian Vander and his Magma project.
Like fellow countrymen Vortex, this band too was formed by brothers (this is not the only resemblance). Yves (guitar, piano, vocals) and Hubert (drums & percussions) Brebion were self-taught musicians. They formally formed Mosaïc
in 1974. However the band existed in the two preceding years only with no name and played covers of rock bands and musicians such as Cream, Hendrix, Grateful Dead etc. and then moved on to more experimental and innovative bands such as Soft machine, King Crimson, Gong, Magma etc. in 1974 Jean-Yves Escoffier joined the band and took charge of keyboards and guitars. They looked for a bassist and finally found one in Philippe Lemongne. There were also several musicians with whom the band collaborated and some appeared on their album Ultimatum, such as the violinist Valentin Bontchev.
During the years 1974-1978 Mosaïc performed all over France in shows and festivals. They made a demo cassette called Cuvee 77 which was produced in 200 copies. This demo had two tracks recorded in the studio with Bontchev on one side and side two contained two live performances with much improvisations.
In 1978 Mosaïc recorded their album Ultimatum in Paris and it was printed in 500 copies.
However the band was to dissolve soon as Yves would leave the band in May 1978 and the band kept on for a few more shows until September and then disbanded in 1979.
Here is what Yves Brebion wrote in the liner notes for the reissue of Ultimatum:
"Using musical violence, vocal paroxysm, and some frantic and frenzied guitar parts, committed to refined musical developments, Mosaic was a part of that avant-garde progressive rock with a strong taste for complex, polished, adventurous, aggressive and delirious music! "
Mosaïc created music which aligned with RIO criterions - wacky, weird, sometimes psychedelic, avant-garde, experimental, chamber rock sound, dissonances, chaotic and violent at times, calm the next, frequent abrupt rhythm changes - all the required traits you usually get in albums of this genre are present here and most of it is instrumental. The bass work is exceptionally well and brings to mind Zeuhl. This is an album that will appeal to RIO and Avant-garde fans and is worth tracking down.
The album has been reissued by the now defunct Israeli label Mio Records as Ultimatum Plus. This reissue includes their demo Cuvee 77 as well as two bonus tracks.
It is said that most great things come in small doses. In France they seem to take that premise literaly: like Asia Minor's "Between Flesh and Divine", Arachnoid's homonymous or Ange's "Au delà du Delire", this is a short album, at just 34 minutes (I am refering to the original, not bonus-added editions).
Un Trop is a typical jazz-fusion track that could be easily confused with a Brand X or Return to Forever track. It is followeed by the short Croisière sur L'Amoco-cadiz, an cello-led track that serves as interlude between the first song and the third, La Vérite au fond du puits ou Narcisse en Palestine. This starts of as a slight bucolic tune but immediatly fades into nothing but an odd colection of sounds, like metal bending and sticks clacking, with a subtle organ sound in the background. Halfway they get back at doing some proper music, getting back to the jazzy sound, ending it with something more likely to be found of King Crimson's "Red". A sombre strings segment links this song to the next, Souvenirs, souvenirs, which is basicly the same segment slightly dominated by cello, more like avant-guarde classical that avant-prog.
Papapluie FUZZ is almost self-explanatory. It basicly a fuzzy keyboard and guitar driven tune, accompanied by a fast beat that makes this song sound a bit like the famous first seconds of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine". Rue Tabaga starts with sounds of telephone conversation, before the guitar bursts out to open yet another jazz-rock piece a la Brand X. It is followed byPicnic à Grigny, another small bucolic piece of acoustic guitar and cello serving as interlude.
A nice guitar riff and beat open Le torero d'alu, but they only last for a while. Part II of this song is absolutely annoying, even for Avantguarde. It is caracterized by this terrible screeching sound that at points almosts seems like a pig being slaughtered. Halfway to the song begins Part III with the same initial riff, this time featuring some tasteful use of electronics. Part IV is an all-instrument section sounding like an improv that slowly fades out into the final track. Mercenaire recaptures previous track's opening riff, acommpanied by a constant drum and bassline, featuring some rough screeming vocals (but that fit greatly into the general agressiveness of this track) between some very distorted guitar parts. It is a really good track, very raw and agressive.
One of the downsides of the album is it's apparent lack of direction, mixing severall styles without really ever settling for one that could make the album cohesive. Still, if you enjoy Jean-Luc Ponty's solo work, as well as some of the more experimental jazz- fusion acts, you'll probably enjoy it greatly. Also, one cannot cease to wonder if modern french avant-guarde bands, like Taal and, to an extent, Noir Désir, have heard this album, seeing that it is so easy to find some similarities in it. Overall, despite quite good, this is not an exceptionaly memorable album, but that will only make you want to hear it more than once. As a representant of a style so complex, it does his job superbly.
Mosaic's sole album Ultimatum has some really great moments of underground / experimental instrumental rock. Especially the brilliant opener 'Un Trop'. But honestly there are a lot of wasted notes on here - with plenty of bits that sound more like a rehearsal/tune up. And the punkish closer 'Mercenaire' is wildly out of place. The more overtly fusion Zeuhlish 1977 material that serve as bonus tracks are much better (and there's more bonus than the actual LP!), but alas it's not very well recorded. Pity that they weren't able to record properly during this period of the band. This album will have its fans, especially among those who enjoy the quirky French avant prog strain.
One of my favorite one-off albums of strange bedfellow components, with a completely off-the-wall premise.
William Burroughs monotonously mumbles snippets of his own loose interpretations of Egyptian mysticism, peppered with his bored-bohemian-drifter-in-a-mint-teahouse-in-suffocating-North-African-heat musings. It comes off part ancient mystery, part heroin-baked hallucination. Behind him, middle eastern and NYC musicians play 1989 proto-techno from the virgin days of World Music, with beats, pan-Arabian melodies and Laswell's BIG bass holding up Burroughs' oft-penetrated rear.
Buy the 1989 original release. Please. On the '97 Triloka label redux, Laswell---or whomever---way overprogram the lounge-disco North African fusion beats, mixing them far too up-front and purposeful. To make matters worse, they superimpose three superfluous and uninteresting remixes at the opening of the album. Total overkill. The original album's unique value is the balance it achieves between the Saharan lounginess, the mathy bass lines, and just the right amount of Burroughs.
At their most effective, the lounge beats on the original 7-track album are an effectively serrated platform for the Naked Luncher's sand-in-his-voice aridity of purpose and delivery. There's an opposites-attract vibe the way Laswell rubs brooding Bedouin bluster up against Burroughs' laconically croaked belittlements and blasphemies.
The worldbeat segments do sound hammy and overcooked at times, when Burroughs isn't around to staunch them with his monotone. But when he's reciting colorful, enigmatic and possibly nonsensical pseudo-mysticisms as if indisputable fact, it's all a grease bath in gauche eccentric lasciviousness.
"The old writer couldn't write anymore, for he had reached the end of words," Burroughs stammers like a bullfrog with a sinus infection in the wrap-up track. Which may be why the hipsters are playing souped-up casbah music---to fill in the silences behind you, Bill.
Conceived as a conceptual tie-in to William Burroughs' novel The Western Lands - arguably his last major creative effort - Material's Seven Souls offers up avant-jazz dub interpretations of Middle Eastern music set against Burroughs reading extracts from the novel.
To use an appropriately Burroughs-esque metaphor, imagine listening to Peter Gabriel's Passion album - another fusion of traditional world music and modern electronics with mild prog sensibilities hailing from the same year - and feeling the first uneasy pangs of cold turkey coming on; that gets across the eerie tone of the album.
Play it on something with decent bass, because though Laswell acts as a multi-instrumentalist here (by now Material was just him and a constellation of guest musicians), he's a bassist at heart and if your setup obscures what he's doing with the bass, you'll miss half the action.
The tale of Material encompasses the story arcs of two different entities, New York at the beginning of the 80s, where musicians uptown were cross pollinating punk, funk, the remnants of disco, jazz, world beat, and more into a stew that resulted in great tracks by The Contortions, Konk, ESG, and Material. The other tale is one of session bassist Bill Laswell, who moved to New York in the late 70s and began a meteoric rise that resulted in him being a fixture on the NY vanguard for several years, and would eventually lead him higher before he split off from reality entirely and began following his own path.
Bill Laswell has had his fingers in many pies over the years, but his most significant came early on. His first big gig was supplying supple and ominous basslines for Brian Eno's Ambient 4 album, on the solid opener, "Lizard Point," a track that also featured Material producer Michael Beinhorn. But Material was where Laswell first established how omnivorous he could be. The first Material album, Memory Serves, was a piece of fusion that featured some really heavy grooves ("Memory Serves," "Disappearing," and "Upriver" are the songs that you really need to hear) and excessive fusion wankery on equal measure. The lineup on the album was simply astounding, featuring, besides Laswell, Sonny Sharrock, Air saxophonist Henry Threadgill, and former Henry Cow guitar maestro Fred Frith. Bill dramatically revamped the lineup for album two, accurately titled One Down, bringing in Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards from Chic, Beinhorn, and a young singer named Whitney frigging Houston for vocals. After One Down, the decade of the 1980s became an excersise in "six degrees of Bill Laswell." He popped up to do production work for Mick Jagger's She's The Boss, an album Keith Richards likened to Mein Kampf in that "everyone had it but no one read (listened to) it." The Golden Palominos were another project spearheaded by Laswell and drummer Anton Fier, though they ended up doing their best work in the 1990s. He brought Sly & Robbie together with Grandmaster Flash for an omnivorous jams session on the Rhythm Killers album, where he first established his penchant for bringing in players from completely disparate musical genres and countries, and putting them together for one massive super session. In the 90s, he continued to work like a madman, playing in the supergroup Praxis with a hot ng guitarist named Buckethead and Bernie Worrell. His explorations into dub music became more and more pronounced, as well as ambient and drum n bass projects. But somehow, along the way, Laswell's name began to become far less respected within the rock hinterland. His genre excisions were known for being bloodless excerises in trend-hopping, and his super sessions eventually turned into Laswell taking the best parts out of all the music he loved from around the world, putting their disparate components into a single container, and making the mixture bland and uninteresting. Simon Reynolds said it, perhaps quite harshly, but also best, when he gave Laswell the "lifetime underachievement award," asking "has this man ever done anything of consequence?" I have no idea what he's doing now. Probably working on an album of dub remixes of ":Blue Jay Way."
Actually, a dub remix of "Blue Jay Way" would be kind of cool. But I digress.
On the surface, this album might just seem like another instance of Laswell taking a genre, disco (well, post-disco), and injecting his own DNA into it to make it completely bloodless and boring, as some would argue he did with trip hop on the Golden Palominos' This Is How It Feels (I would argue against that though, I like This Is How It Feels despite some very, very obvious flaws). The music here is blatantly trashy and commercial sounding in a plastic way that makes it seem as though the music is meant to sit in one's ear, or meant to be danced to without a second thought. I'm going to have to break firmly from the pack here, the pack that gave this such a brutally low rating on RYM. This album ruled on the first listen, and I acknowledge that this album sounds like a completely soulless product of a music major wanting to try his hand at something commercial. Think of today, when hyper-talented collectives such as Vulfpeck attempt to write pop and soul songs, and though the band is talented, the songs come out like you are listening to them through glass, simply because the band can't feign any emotional involvement in anything that they are singing. And that's the case here. But its one thing to have a bunch of random music majors, it's quite another to have Nile Rodgers and Whitney fucking Houston backing you up.
I even like the least overtly groovy tracks here, "Take A Chance" and "Time Out." Yeah, the cheesy 80s production flourishes abound in these tracks. "Take A Chance" is powered by a booming, unpleasant, robotic drum pattern, and the vocals are run through some sort of machine, to be as robotic as possible, but the song is so awkward that hating it just seems futile. And "Time Out" has that great synth pattern that pops up around 45 seconds in and continually throughout the song. We've got a ballad as well, sung by Whitney as opposed to Nona Hendryx, who provides the majority of the vocals on the album. Its a cover of a Hugh Hopper-era Soft Machine song called "Memories," and it's absolutely gorgeous. Robert Christgau called it one of the most beautiful ballads ever, and while I wouldn't go that far, its still and amazing performance and I'm glad its here. And the rest, well, its all so funky it positively HURTS. "I'm The One" has those wiry funk chords driving the chorus (and it was later covered by a forgotten acid jazz act called D-Train to much less magnificent effect), and the chorus of "Hold On" makes use of crunchy guitars that manage to help the song rather than hurt it. But the song that really sets the album on fire is, of course, "Bustin Out." Yes, the guitar riff is a blatant rewrite of "Train In Vain," the band sets up a groove so unstoppable that they kick it for eight minutes, and I still don't get enough. Like the rest of the album, Laswell stays in the low tones of his bass, preferring to be a deep presence rather than take front and center, Nona howls out the lyrics with the utmost conviction that seems to have been forever lost when the 80s died out, the part in the middle where everyone drops out but the groove in order to build the song band up is phenomenal...wow. This is one of the most perfect dance songs ever released, and I don't dance at all. It's one of the most addictive songs ever.
So yeah, for a brief moment, Bill Laswell managed to hit that sweet spot that allows a virtuosic outsider to intrude on an established form of art and bend it to his will, creating a masterpiece. Bill would do some decent work later on in his career (Praxis has some good songs, such as the wild "Interface/Stimulation Loop" on their debut, This Is How It Feels from The Golden Palominos ism pretty consistent, but Rhythm Killers is one of the most unpleasant experiences of the 80s. Why Christgau gave that one an A I have no idea), but remember him this way.
Well, the last one sounded like an insane, once-in-a-lifetime jam session with every musician contributing to the madness, but this... this sounds like "Michael Beinhorn and Bill Laswell make a dance-pop record".
A really great dance-pop record! Like, they've definitely traded Max's Kansas City for Studio 54, but that actually works out great for them, this is a great slab of mean, nocturnal disco. Be sure to listen to the version that has "Breakin' Out" on it!
Also, yes: Whitney Houston is here. In her first ever recorded appearance! And she sounds good. Like, Whitney Houston had a good voice. Who would have thought?
- Michael Beinhorn / synthesizers, tape, guitar, drums, voice
- Bill Laswell / 4-, 6- & 8-string basses
- Fred Maher / drums, percussion, guitar
With:
- Sonny Sharrock / guitar
- Fred Frith / guitar, violin & vibes (1,4,5,7)
- George Lewis / trombone (1,7,8)
- Olu Dara / trumpet (2,3)
- Henry Threadgill / alto sax (2,6,7)
- Billy Bang / violin (3,6)
- Charles K. Noyes / drums, percussion & bells (1,8)
- Robert Musso / guitar (9)
- Anton Fier / drums (9)
- Daniel Ponce / percussion (9)
- Derek Showard "D.St." / turntables (9)
Crawling out of the sludge of NYC's post-punk no wave scene, Material starts to show a lot more sophistication on this, their first full length album after three slightly primitive EPs. Band leader Bill Laswell seems more than eager to start leaving behind his less ambitious band mates as he starts to bring on guests from the 'real' jazz world. Some of the top names from New York's early 80s avant-jazz scene are here including Henry Threadgill, Fred Frith, Sonny Sharrock and Billy Bang. Likewise Laswell doesn't waste any time utilizing his new part-time band mates to take his music into territories he couldn't explore with Material's original three piece lineup. In particular Bill reveals for the first time his deep attachment to the mid-70s music of Miles Davis. For a long time the public had acted as if Miles had dropped off the planet after recording Bitches Brew. Much credit is due to Laswell and other 80s punk/jazzers for recognizing the value of Miles' excursions into avant- psychedelic rock and incorporating his innovations into their music. In particular, the song Dissapearing sounds like an outright Miles tribute with the first part of the song coming from Agharta, and the second half from On the Corner.
Elsewhere throughout this album Material seems to have a lot of fun ripping through a variety of styles in a way that hadn't been heard in the world of jazz fusion in a long while. In the early 80's mainstream fusion had become terribly mundane and safe and was not much more than background music for yuppie diners. NYC bands such as Material and others with avant-garde and post-punk backgrounds were bringing a new life and spunk, as well as an irreverent sense of humor to jazz fusion. A couple songs on here are almost a mix of avant-funk and goofy hillbilly music, something that would have been unheard of in the overly sophisticated world of mainstream fusion post late-70s.
There is some 'material' on here that is less than inspiring. Laswell and his gang still felt obligated to throw on one kind of punky funk number with vocals that are less than professional, as well as a number of noisy experimental cuts that drag on a little too long. In some of the more experimental numbers you can definitely hear Fred Frith's influence via his work with Laswell in Massacre.
This album was a huge breath of fresh air and a bold punky slap in the face of mundane overly slick jazz fusion in the early 80s. I don't know if all that translates these days, but it still has some fun songs, and fun isn't a word you hear associated with jazz fusion too often.
Absolutely demented jazz-funk-noise-punk-disco madness. Will make you get up on the floor, but will also make you lose grip on reality.
It kinda sounds like discipline era king krimson meets the pop group, or someother wacky new wave thing. Enjoyable throughout.
