Elephant Château

American dub maestro Bill Laswell, Compass Point All-Stars’ Sly Dunbar, Senegalese percussionist Aïyb Dieng, Tamil Indian violinist Shankar, Greek guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, and others meet William S. Burroughs on Material’s fourth studio album. Seven Souls features the legendary Beat Generation writer’s spoken word narration of passages from his novel The Western Lands set to wild outernational grooves from Laswell and crew. Ancient Egypt is loosely the theme here, though the group seems to approach that sound with more of an abstract cyberpunk flavor than a historically accurate recreation featuring samples, drum machines, Fairlight CMI, and various ethno-percussion from around the world. As expected from Laswell and Material, it’s a totally unique sound with tracks ranging from psychedelic chill-out to electro punk-funk. It’s not all pretty and some of it sounds quite dated, but Seven Souls is an absolute classic from the great sonic visionary Bill Laswell.
Recommended – A1 Ineffect, A2 Seven Souls, B3 Equation
A1 Ineffect
A2 Seven Souls
A3 Soul Killer
B1 The Western Lands
B2 Deliver
B3 Equation
B4 The End Of Words
Artwork – Shinro Ohtake
Bass [4, 6 & 8 String Basses], Acoustic Guitar, Tape [Tapes], Percussion – Bill Laswell
Drums, Synthesizer [Fairlight] – Sly Dunbar
Engineer – Robert Musso
Engineer [Assistant Engineer] – Oz Fritz
Engineer, Mixed By – Martin Bisi
Guitar [6 & 12 String Guitars], Sitar [Coral Sitar], Baglama, Lute [Saz], Synthesizer [Fairlight] – Nicky Skopelitis
Keyboards [Electronic] – Jeff Bova
Mastered By – Howie Weinberg
Other [Business] – Tony Meilandt
Other [Pre-production Assistance] – James Grauerholz
Percussion – Aïyb Dieng*
Producer, Arranged By – Bill Laswell, Material
Technician [Drums] – Artie Smith
Violin – Shankar, Simon Shaheen
Voice – Fahiem Dandan, Foday Musa Suso, Rammellzee, William S. Burroughs