Material Gains

Hello again! Now that most folks feel things are looking up, let's ignite this anniversary special to light up your Sunday even brighter.

I was gonna wait til next year for this one's 40th, but who knows where I'll be in a year -- heck, if I'll be -- so we are jumping the gun for its 39th today.

It features the first touring configuration of Bill Laswell's seminal Material project, joining four towering forces atop a mighty rhythm section for the first onstage salvos in the long, serrated history of this band.

You get Laswell, artillery guitar grand marshal Sonny Sharrock, violin deity Billy Bang and Michael Beinhorn, now known more as a producer but back then an electronics and synth mastermind.

Plus, Curlew instigator George Cartwright, whom I'll cover here someday.

Overall it's a pounding hour of Punk Jazz, with Sharrock and Bang in particular going totally buck wild, as they were often wont to do.

Material

Jazzfest Berlin

Metropol 

Berlin, Germany

11.8.1981

01 Upriver

02 Unauthorized

03 untitled improvisation

04 Conform to the Rhythm

05 Disappearing

06 Heritage 

07 Reduction

08 Metal Test

Total time: 1:01:05

George Cartwright - saxophones

Billy Bang - violin 

Michael Beinhorn - synthesizer, tapes & vocals

Sonny Sharrock - guitar

Bill Laswell - bass

David T. Louis - drums

Lewojazz/Tom Phillips remaster of a digital capture of an 11.17.2017 Kulturradio rebroadcast

372 MB FLAC/November 2020 archive link

I'm working on November so stay tuned and stay strong! This blast of furnaced fire oughta help.--J.

                                                               8.27.1940 - 5.25.1994      9.20.1947 - 4.11.2011