''Perfect Machine'' is the thirty-seventh album by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

pianist

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...

. It was the third and final album in Hancock’s series co-produced by

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, ...

. Guests include bassist

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 ...

Background

The album was produced with

and performed with

Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner Leroy Roosevelt "Sugarfoot" Bonner (March 14, 1943 – January 26, 2013) was a musician, vocalist, and producer. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Cincinnati in 1943, Bonner grew up poor, the oldest of 14 children. He ...

of the Ohio Players, and

Grand Mixer DXT Derek Showard, better known by the stage name GrandMixer DXT, is an American musician, one of the earliest to use turntables as a musical instrument in the 1980s. Early in his career, he was known as Grand Mixer D.ST, a reference to Delancey St ...

. It marked the end of his "Rockit" phase in the 1980s. Richard S. Ginnell at AllMusic called the album "mostly thumping, funk-drenched techno-pop".

Track listing

All songs by Hancock, Laswell, Collins and Bonner, except where noted. #"Perfect Machine" (Hancock, Laswell, Skopelitis) - 6:35 #"Obsession" - 5:20 #"Vibe Alive" (Hancock, Laswell, Collins, Bonner, Mico Wave) - 5:26 #"Beat Wise" - 5:52 #" Maiden Voyage/P. Bop" - 6:34 #"Chemical Residue" (Hancock) - 6:01 #"Vibe Alive" (extended dance mix) - 8:13 #"Beat Wise" (12-inch edit) - 6:28

Personnel

Musicians * Herbie Hancock – piano,

Fairlight CMI The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos It was based on a commercial licen ...

Series I & II, Rhodes Chroma, Macintosh Plus, Yamaha DX1, Yamaha DX7 and DX7IIFD,

Kurzweil K250 The Kurzweil K250, manufactured by Kurzweil Music Systems, was an early electronic musical instrument which produced sound from sampled sounds compressed in ROM, faster than common mass storage such as a disk drive. Acoustic sounds from br ...

, Yamaha TX816, Oberheim Matrix–12, Akai S900,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

Jeff Bova Jeff Bova (born Jeffrey Bova in 1953) is an American musician. He has been active in the music industry since the mid-1970s, contributing to recordings by significant mainstream artists like Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Eric Clapton, ...

, Pete Sturge – synth programming *

– bass guitar, vocoder * Mico Wave –

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

bass,

talk box A talk box (also spelled talkbox and talk-box) is an effects unit that allows musicians to modify the sound of a musical instrument by shaping the frequency content of the sound and to apply speech sounds (in the same way as singing) onto the sou ...

, vocoder * Pete Sturge - keyboards, samples and editing * Nicky Skopelitis –

Fairlight Fairlight may refer to: In places: * Fairlight, East Sussex, a village east of Hastings in southern England, UK * Fairlight, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia * Fairlight, Saskatchewan, Canada In other uses: * Fairlight (company), an ...

drums *

– turntables, sound effects *

– vocals Production * Herbie Hancock – producer *

– producer * Tony Meilandt – associate producer *

Martin Bisi Martin Bisi (born 1961) is an American producer and songwriter. He is known for recording important records by Sonic Youth, Swans, John Zorn, Material, Bill Laswell, Helmet, Unsane, The Dresden Dolls, Cop Shoot Cop, White Zombie, Bored ...

, Mike Krowiak, Dave Jerden, Billy Yodelman, Bryan Bell – engineers *

Dave Jerden Dave Jerden is an American record producer, engineer, and mixer who has worked with artists in various genres including alternative rock, punk rock and metal. However, Jerden has stated that he dislikes the term "producer", preferring to refer ...

– mixing *

Howie Weinberg Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer with over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize. Career Weinberg mastered Herbie Hancock's 1983 album ''Future Shock''. Other ...

– mastering

References

{{Authority control 1988 albums Columbia Records albums Herbie Hancock albums Albums produced by Bill Laswell