Artistically, jazzrock fusion has been dead for at least the last five years, the original Miles Davis-Mahavishnu Orchestra vision of blazing jazz soul, solo derring-do and electric rock urgency having been undone by commercial nearsightedness. Now Material, a chameleonic New York ensemble headed by bassist Bill Laswell and synthesizer player Michael Beinhorn, has brought fusion back to life with a startling, wholly uncompromising debut album.

Memory Serves knows no limits because Material recognizes no rules. They acknowledge their influences – like the murky Bitches Brew bop of "Disappearing" and the Captain Beefheart-sounding Delta moan of Laswell's six-string bottleneck bass in "Upriver"–and they brazenly flaunt a knack for cooking up hot, sexy disco rhythms. But at the same time, Material molds and subverts these ingredients to strange purposes, bringing together modern jazz, progressive rock, dance-floor R&B and new music for a sound that is more fission than fusion.

If you have been waiting since Mahavishnu's The Inner Mounting Flame for a fusion record to give you that same thrill of discovery, then Memory Serves will serve you well. (RS 371)

DAVID FRICKE