After finally having enough time to sit down and blast both sides of the fuckin' thing, I'd forgotten (it's been a few years) how incredibly awesome this record is. The first side is hip, for sure, and for me did get the most play in the past, but what was really getting under my skin was side two - especially "Responsible," which has a nice kwela groove (cf. "Fat Man Walks," on More Nipples) between Van Hove's piano and Bennink on bongos. There aren't too many examples in the early years of Brotzmann's groove; he hit his stride with the Miller/Moholo team in the late '70s, and then again with Parker and Drake (admit I prefer the former). Bennink also gets some chance to stretch his bebop swing on "Music for Han Bennink," and contributes some great playing in the first 1/3 of the tune.
The recording is excellent for this type of music. It's extremely dense when it needs to be, but when they let up, the grit is actually very nuanced. You can hear the horsehairs and rosin up against the bass strings, for example.
I think that between this, Nipples, European Echoes, and The Topography of the Lungs, you really have a great canvas of what was happening in West European jazz at the turn of the '70s, a crucial time for this music. It is its own, and it is of a piece.