Search - Material :: Seven Souls

Deep Stuff

Scott McFarland | Manassas, VA United States | 09/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I remember the times quite well; nobody else did anything as creative or startling as this in 1989. And you could hear the ideas seeping out of this and into some of the more widely-heard college rock.Herein, Laswell and his co-conspirators create lush soundscapes where hip-hop beats meet Middle Eastern instrumentation. East meets West and it grooves very nicely. This all becomes a backdrop for William Burroughs to recite readings over the top of. The music is state of the art and Burrough's narration quite memorable also."

A true diamond in the rough

pineflint | Tokyo Japan | 06/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The aficionados of this album are a select crew and for some reason this hidden masterpiece has never become widely known. I heard it playing in a record store back when it had just been released and it instantly grabbed me; I had to own it. It's been with me ever since and has aged very well.



The music on this album is, in retrospect, almost startlingly ahead of its time, anticipating a variety of different sensibilities that became more fleshed-out in the 90s. A haunting, profoundly polished darkness glistens over the entire album. It achieves a high level of smoothness using "conventional" instruments and voices in combination with keyboards, rather than relying purely synth for such a tight sound as later artists would probably have done. In this sense, the music is a triumph of the outer limits of "analog" music, similar to some of the more polished work by artists working in the 80s such as Harold Blume, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, or David Byrne.



Burroughs' spoken word pieces are generally quite good, but the general problem with spoken word in music is that it often deters listeners from repeated listening because they think "I've heard it before." Or else they concentrate on the words to the exclusion of the music. Either approach would be a shame here, because the music deserves repeated listening. Fortunately, the spoken word overlays are not annoying upon repetition, are not overly intrusive, and are blended skillfully with the music.



Material explores some hard-to-define emotions and themes. There is a bit of the long, arduous, but beautiful voyage through the unknown here. The album retains a distinctiveness that has made it sound contemporary and not out-of-place at each listening over the past 16 years. Overall, highly recommended."

6. Equation

Carl Johnson | Detroit, MI United States | 07/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Material has been an adventurous project band for Bill Laswell since the late 1970's. Seven Souls grabbed me at the time it was released quite strongly (mid eighties). It is still captivating today. I titled the name of this review with the title of the strongest potentially commercial track of the recording. It is a heavy beat track with much urban influence, which was not over done as the urban sounds often are today. On the rest of the recording you can hear much of the dark ambient influences effecting Bill in thoses days... but ALL the players are excellent musicians on this record! This record, with the addition of William Burroughs, makes it a keepsake for us "Space cadets". It has much to offer to an adventerous open ear. Excellent spin!"