Nothing on Material’s first two releases prepares you for One Down, which is a straight-up pop-funk album, complete with vocoder, slap bass, and verse-chorus-verse song structures. Well, maybe “straight-up” is an exaggeration: guest musicians include avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith, edgy jazz saxophonist Oliver Lake, and edgier saxophonist Archie Shepp (whose astonishing solo accompanies a young singer named Whitney Houston on the ballad “Memories”). But still, this is essentially a pop album, even if it has some pretty sharp edges, and that tension between pop and avant-garde makes it a tremendously fun and exciting listen.

– Rick Anderson