Laswell, Beinhorn, Maher and Cultreri evolved as Material in 1979 first releasing the Temporary Music EP, followed by two more albums (Memory Serves and One Down) with an ever-revolving list of contributors, including singers such as Nona Hendryx, Bernard Fowler and Whitney Houston.
Three young friends, Michael Beinhorn (17, synthesizer), Martin Bisi (17, engineering) and Fred Maher (14, drums), responded to Laswell's advert in The Village Voice and the band began rehearsing in the club's basement.
They were joined at this performance by saxophonist George Bishop and drummer Chris Cutler who were working on Allen's N'Existe Pas album, guitarist Michael Lawrence deputised for Cultreri, while Fred Frith guested on some pieces.
[2] They toured North America in an old school bus from April into June playing most of Gong's Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, with Martin departing after a few weeks, his place being taken by another of Kramer's friends, Bill Bacon.
[2][4] In autumn, they recorded the album About Time,[5] followed by a September and October tour of France, after which Allen and the band amicably parted company when they "discovered they couldn't stand the European way of life".
[10] The group would play around New York as a three-piece with a revolving list of “front-men” such as guitarists Sonny Sharrock and Fred Frith, saxophonists Byard Lancaster and Henry Threadgill or cornetist Olu Dara.
"[11] The first full album as Material, Memory Serves, was instrumental and featured strong jazz leanings with contributions from Sharrock, Frith, Dara, Threadgill and violinist Billy Bang.
[13] As an indication of the direction the band headed for, Chic's guitarist Nile Rodgers was involved alongside Frith and Drayton, but perhaps more significantly, was one of the first appearances of longtime Laswell collaborator Nicky Skopelitis on guitar.
They worked initially in the electro genre, but were persuaded to move into the fields of hip-hop and rap by Karakos who had been introduced to likes of turntablist D.St and rappers PHASE 2, Futura 2000 and Fab Five Freddy by Bernard Zekri.
[8][9] A chance meeting between Laswell and Herbie Hancock at Elektra Records, in which the latter expressed interest in making music in the vein of Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Gals", led to a collaboration that brought forth the Future Shock album and the hit single "Rockit".
In 1984, under the name Timezone, they released the single "World Destruction" which featured disc jockey Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon (former singer of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd).
In 1998, the album was subject to a series of re-mixes by Laswell, Talvin Singh, Spring Heel Jack, DJ Olive and released as The Road to the Western Lands.
[14] On 5 April 2005, Laswell performed a 2-hour concert at WTTW Studios, Chicago with three incarnations of his groups: Tabla Beat Science (with Zakir Hussein, Ustad Sultan Khan, DJ Disk, Karsh Kale, Selim Merchant and Nils Petter Molvaer), Material (with Pharoah Sanders, Foday Musa Suso, Hamid Drake, Aïyb Dieng and Abegasu Shiota) and Praxis (with Buckethead, Brian "Brain" Mantia and Toshinori Kondo), with Bootsy Collins performing MC duties at its climax.