Material - Live In Japan

When is a Material album not a Material album? Or rather, when is a Material album a Material album? Bill Laswell has produced lots of albums featuring the same rotating stable of musicians that are sometimes called Material, but most of them have given top billing to featured artists or sported other band names: Ginger Baker, Nicky Skopelitis, Aiyb Dieng, Bill Laswell, Deadline, Sacred System, etc. Live In Japan could just as well have been credited to Foday Musa Suso or Ginger Baker. But it has the Material moniker, the only album of original material (as it were) released during the brief association with the Restless label. The recordings on Live In Japan are taken from performances in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Imabari in August 1992 with the following lineup:

• Foday Musa Suso: kora, dousongonni, guitar, percussion, vocal
• Bill Laswell: bass
• Bernie Worrell: piano, Hammond organ, Clavinet, synthesizer
• Nicky Skopelitis: 6 & 12 string guitars
• Aiyb Dieng: chatan, congas, talking drum, percussion
• Ginger Baker: drums

The All Music Guide doesn't think much of this one:

It's a great lineup, and one that should have delivered much more musical interest than it does on this album. "Leaving Earth" is a six-and-a-half minute meditation on a one-chord riff; more than just boring, it's also badly recorded. "Desert Star" is an improvement, with a nice interplay of fretless bass and a bowed African instrument in a much improved mix. And "Out of Dreamtime" affords more dynamic variety, but it leads into an eleven-minute percussion solo which is well executed but drags on forever. Overall, this is a disappointing disc that could and should have been much better.

Hey, if you like good drumming, a long, well-executed percussion solo is fantastic! And something that gets lost in the plethora of Laswell productions is that he is an awesome bass player, but that aspect comes through throughout this album. And it's a generous 69 minutes long. What's not to like? Track list:

01-Invocation.mp3
02-Leaving Earth.mp3
03-Desert Star.mp3
04-Out of the Dreamtime.mp3
05-Obsessed.mp3
06-Into the Seventh House.mp3
07-Dousongonni Song.mp3
08-The Receiver.mp3
09-The Creator Has a Master Plan.mp3
10-The Image of the One.mp3

I don't know where most of these songs originated, just that the last two are originally by Pharaoh Sanders. Anyone know? Let me know in the comments. Get the CD rip here or here.

Nicky Skopelitis - Next To Nothing

Guitarist Nicky Skopelitis has long been a Bill Laswell collaborator, appearing in a supporting role on countless Material and related albums. He has also taken center stage for several "solo" albums, which are more like Skopelitis-led Material albums. His first solo album was Next To Nothing on Virgin; it was released in 1989 and practically disappeared. It took me years to find a copy of the CD, but it eventually turned up during a casual browse of a used CD section. Backing up Skopelitis are Laswell (naturally) and Axiom label mainstays Ginger Baker, Simon Shaheen, and Aiyb Dieng, plus none other than Fred Frith on violin. Seven tracks, 35 minutes, CD rip @128 192 (by popular request), get it here or here.