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...

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...