Material

Bill Laswell delivers a characteristically genre-hopping melange of trip-hop funk, jazz, funk-jazz, African mystic experimentalism, space jams and ambient afro-space-funk-jam-icisms. Highlighted by a hilarious William Burroughs cameo, Hallucination Engine is another tripped-out excursion into smart guy weirdo music.

Praising Hallucination Engine as a postmodern Bitches Brew may seem mad, but Material
bassist-composerguru Bill Laswell risks a maneuver akin to the one Miles Davis pulled off
with his 1969 trailblazer: fusing disparate sounds into one groovy om of exhilaration and
release. For sonic gorgeousness, funky trance states and technical bravado, this bid is the
boldest. The players – including saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Bootsy Colli... More >