Search - Praxis :: Transmutation Live

Geoff C. from WATERTOWN, MA
Reviewed on 10/30/2006...

A good CD, but I ended up with an extra copy in my collection.

Not enough integration

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 04/14/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"While this cd has some great moments, I think the "concept" of this band is a little too disjointed. The musicians who make up this incarnation of PRAXIS are Bill Laswell on bass, Buckethead on guitar, Brain on drums, and dj's DXT and The Invisible Scratch Pickels. What I think this band lacks is any sort of integration of the styles they use. Throughout this cd it's basically this.... for 3 minutes it's the Pickles and the band is basically an underground hip-hop band. Then the Pickles more-or-less quit playing and Buckethead, Brain, and Laswell take over and then the band is a shred-funk band for a few minutes. Then DXT plays some ambient space stuff for a minute. And on and on and on... Had Buckethead, Laswell, and the Pickles ever had a 10 minute section where they all improvised together as an ensemble it most likely would have been the 10 best minutes of the entire cd. That would have been a brand new sound, a new type of entity, but as it is, they are dub for 5 minutes, shred for 5 minutes, ambient for 2 minutes, etc...Like I said, there are some truly great moments seperately by everyone involved (Buckethead in particular has some beautiful playing) and I don't regret buying this cd, but I think as a band, the group sound would have been much more unique had they tried to integrate all these seperate musical genre's into something whole and "new". The liner notes would make you think this is the most original music of the last 20 years, but it's actually rather cut-and-paste sounding overall."