''Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)'' is the first album by Bill Laswell's ever-changing "supergroup" Praxis. The album was released in 1992 and features Buckethead on guitar,

Bootsy Collins William Earl "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist and singer. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s, and later with Parliament-Funkadelic, Collins established himself as one of the leading n ...

on bass and vocals, Brain on drums, Bernie Worrell on keyboards and DJ AF Next Man Flip on turntables. ''Transmutation'' features a wide range of genres such as heavy metal,

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

, hip hop,

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

, jazz and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, creating a unique style of avant-garde music, with extended guitar and keyboard solos, and highly improvised passages.

Track listing

Note: Track 8 contains an interpolation of the title theme from the Japanese TV series ''

Giant Robot In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

'', a rendition of which also featured on Buckethead's ''

Bucketheadland Bucketheadland is the debut studio album by American guitarist and songwriter Buckethead. It was released on John Zornʼs Japanese record label, Avant, in 1992. It features several samples of the 1960s Japanese television series, '' Giant Robot'' ...

'' album. The track also features one of the many themes '' Akira Ifukube'' wrote for Toho production's '' Godzilla'' films.

Personnel

Personnel as per Discogs. *Praxis: **

– space bass, vocals ** Buckethead – guitar, toys ** Brain – drums ** Bernie Worrell – synthesizer, clavinet & vital organ ** AF Next Man Flip (Lord of the Paradox) – turntable, mixer *Recorded at Greenpoint Studios, Brooklyn, New York *Conceived and constructed by Bill Laswell *Robert Musso, Imad Mansour, Paul Berry, Oz Fritz – engineers * Howie Weinberg – mastering * James Koehnline – artwork *Thi Linh Le – art direction, photography *Aldo Sampieri – design

''A Taste of Mutation'' EP

''A Taste of Mutation'' is an EP by

supergroup Supergroup or super group may refer to: * Supergroup (music), a music group formed by artists who are already notable or respected in their fields * Supergroup (physics), a generalization of groups, used in the study of supersymmetry * Supergroup ...

Praxis, released in 1992 through Bill Laswell's label

Axiom An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...

and featuring four songs from their debut album ''Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)''.

Track listing

Animal Behavior single

''Animal Behavior'' is the first and only single by

Praxis. The song was a natural choice to promote the band's debut album as well as Bill Laswell's new label

since it was the only song of the album to contain lyrics. The vocals were done by former

P-Funk Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive ...

member

who also plays "space bass" while his P-Funk colleague Bernie Worrell can be heard on keyboards. Furthermore, the core members, San Francisco Bay Area musicians Brain (drums) and Buckethead (guitars) plus band leader Bill Laswell (samples) were assisted by turntablist Af Next Man Flip (aka Afrika Baby Bam of the Jungle Brothers). The single includes three different versions of the title track written by Collins, Laswell and Buckethead, an edited album version from ''Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)'', a short radio edit and a third version that was used for the music video. The original seven-minute album version was also released on the EP ''A Taste of Mutation'' in the same year and later included to the Axiom compilation ''

Funkcronomicon ''Funkcronomicon'' is a 1995 various artists collection of tracks produced by Bill Laswell under the name Axiom Funk, after Laswell's associated record label. It is a 2-CD set that was released by Island Records. ''Funkcronomicon'' features heavy ...

'' in 1995 while the video edit was re-released in 1993 on ''Manifestation: Axiom Collection II''. The song also was included as the last part of the suite "Cosmic Trigger" on the album ''Axiom Ambient - Lost in the Translation'' in 1994.

Track listing

Video

A video by was released for promoting the album and single. It features frequent scenes shot in

night vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vi ...

, footage of guitarist Buckethead moving around and Rammellzee. When singer

starts singing the first verse, another monster made out of soda cans appears. The video later shows how Buckethead fights the first robot with his severed hand but the monster manages to decapitate him. After that the band is shown playing the song in night vision. A scarecrow with a square head appears when the mellow part of the song starts. The members of the band are shown against a sunset background. The video ends with still shots of all the band members and the music fading out. The video clip was played on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

's '' Amp'' and was included in Buckethead's 2006 DVD ''Secret Recipe''.

Personnel

* Buckethead: guitar, toys *

: space bass, vocals * Bernie Worrell: synthesizer, clavinet, vital organ * Af Next Man Flip (Lord of The Paradox): turntable, mixer * Brain: drums * Bill Laswell: samples, sounds * James Koehnline: Cover artist

References

External links

*
''Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)''
at Bandcamp {{Authority control 1992 albums Axiom (record label) albums Albums produced by Bill Laswell Praxis (band) albums