Material - Improvised Music New York 1981

HOW WAS THIS EVEN THE SAME YEAR AS MEMORY SERVES?!

A freeform mess with an emphasis on silences, unsettling rattlings, and then assaults, rather than just that last step. Hellish and disturbing, particularly in the silences. When they give it all they’ve got assault-wise, their musicianship is actually pretty awesome. The tones in Untitled 3 sound like they just killed jazz! The pig/ape noises in Untitled 4 sound like they just stopped being human! Visceral enough to be unpretentious: I’m pretty sure what they’re going for is however the listener reacts, whether that be stimulated, disgusted, or both.

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Material - Memory Serves (1981)

Material's avant-garde dance record: as fun and weird as that sounds. Laswell plays oddball funk basslines which anchor the songs as the other musicians experiment like crazy over the top. Said musicians manage to go avant-garde while maintaining a punk rock spirit, keeping Memory Serves unpretentious. I can hear the Captain Beefheart influence and also where guys like Mike Patton and Les Claypool listened excitedly. That may or may not be a bad thing to you.. I think it's awesome

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