Diamonds & Rust: Praxis – Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) // Mother Earth Is Pregnant For The Fourth Time

[Album artwork by James Koehnline]

As much as I love and appreciate the fact that my metal foundation was fortified by growing up alongside the genre in the ‘80s as a youth, I owe a great deal of my undying appetite for most all branches of music to the early ‘90s and the fact that I split most all of my time between school and hustling a job at a new/used record store outside of Cleveland. The purpose of this feature is to celebrate a pivotal album that bridged that crucial stretch on the ol’ timeline. But first, a little constructive backstory.

Having grown up in a very music-friendly household, exploration was something that was encouraged at an early age. Inside those golden ‘80s, though, I was a very hungry and willing student of heavy metal, first and foremost. I dug other stuff—folk, reggae, early rap, some classic rock—but I didn’t really have the sort of budget that afforded me the opportunity to mine the depths of anything outside of the wild and ridiculously tempting world of metal. And homies, that is precisely how I have always approached discovering new music: by obsessively (and compulsively) diving in with a big splash and plummeting as deep as possible until the threat of drowning basically forces me to speed back to the surface. Repeat as necessary.

With the new record store gig, I finally had the means to quadruple down on my growing obsession, with a library’s worth of used stock available to (literally) check out, recommendations flying in from virtually every angle, and an expectation to “know what I was talking about with customers” all but forcing my hand to explore most every corner of the realm. It was rap, R&B and jazz that demanded my immediate attention, however, as ours was a store that sold huge amounts of precisely that, so I eventually morphed into a fairly peculiar fabled ogre in a Grindcrusher long-sleeve that could talk about the O’Jays, Jodeci, DJ Quick and Herbie Hancock with a flip of a switch. It took a good while to get to that point, though, considering the fact that, outside of a number of distinct exceptions, at least 80% of my funkiness rolling into the ‘90s was expressed through releases such as:

• • Death Angel – Frolic Through the Park [1988] (Bad album, but I dug “Open Up”)
  • Fishbone – Truth and Soul [1988] (I will still KILL for this record)
  • Living Colour – Vivid [1988] (big, BIG deal for me)
  • 24-7 Spyz – Harder Than You [1989]
  • Bad Brains – Quickness [1989]
  • Faith No More – The Real Thing [1989] (Transformative)
  • Mordred – Fool’s Game [1989] (take the L)
  • Urban Dance Squad – Mental Floss for the Globe [1989] (No idea how this album has aged)
  • 24-7 Spyz – Gumbo Millennium [1990]
  • Death Angel – Act III [1990] (still my favorite of theirs)
  • Primus – Frizzle Fry [1990]
  • Scatterbrain – Here Comes Trouble [1990] (*sigh*)

In a matter of months at the new job, however, I could finally immerse myself in whatever caught my eyes and ears, so I was regularly reaching for fresh innovators like Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, Del the Funky Homosapien and The Pharcyde, as well as strengthening my awareness of punk, noise rock, alt-rock and most everything in between.

Then on one crucial night, and despite my predilection for new trends and novel artists, my manager slid a copy of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain into my hands to take home. And thus began a rather extensive fixation with all things George Clinton. Would that infatuation have happened had Maggot Brain not launched with “Maggot Brain,” one of the greatest guitar tracks of all time? I was still fully in love with guitar leads, thanks to the 80s’ metal background, but hearing Eddie Hazel’s fretwork in those opening 10 minutes and discovering said solo was improvised in one take via instructions from Clinton to “play as if you just heard that your mother has died”… It leveled me with same degree of power as the launches to Hell Awaits or Left Hand Path. Suffice to say, my brain exited the building.

The rest of Maggot Brain was a pretty different beast, but it still underscored the marriage of funk and rock in a way that fully razed everything I’d heard prior, and I’m sure any and all the artists responsible for the albums listed above would agree with that assessment. These songs were damn near punk in the way they tore up the rulebook and all but demanded you to skank around the room to cuts like “Hit It and Quit It,” “Wars of Armageddon” and especially “Super Stupid.” The shit was hEaVy in triplicate—in subject matter, weirdness and in groove—and I dedicated weeks on end to feasting on records by Funkadelic and Parliament, thereby weaving names such as Clinton, Hazel, Fuzzy Haskins, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, etc. into my enduring musical tapestry.

[extremely deep space bass plunge]

“Hey, have you seen this? It has Buckethead on it,” a co-worker casually reported one jolly afternoon at the Record Exchange trade desk.

To better set the stage, I’d recently spent far too much time trying to force those around me to assimilate the absolutely bananas Buckethead debut, Bucketheadland (Feb 1992), an album released on a label (Avant) spearheaded by John Zorn, an equally crackers individual who had recently released an even more deranged debut titled Naked City. I’m guessing you know the one. Brass tacks: These wacky motherfuckers were annihilating my musical color palette, and I was a willing accomplice to all the fire-breathing.

Sadly, no one in my immediate sphere seemed interested in joining my Bucketheadland exploration, and that really wasn’t terribly surprising because the album—while intended to be a guitar hero’s ode to growing up next door to Disneyland—mostly came across like some sort of deranged Shrapnel Records release filtered through 100 hours of Saturday afternoons spent watching Kung-Fu Theater on the USA network while eating 10 bowls of Gremlins Sweetened Cereal. But hey, weird was my new wheelhouse, and mega-bonus: Bucketheadland happened to be produced by none other than Bootsy Collins, keeping the Parliament connection from my recent obsession alive and well.

[strange and woozy flange effect]

So, yes, it was the debut full-length from a fresh project called Praxis that ambled through the front door of the Record Exchange that fateful day. And needless to say, I immediately attacked, killed and ate the co-worker that heralded its arrival, just to ensure my unlawful right as sole possessor of this new discovery because, upon cursory review, this fresh entity not only involved Buckethead, but P-Funk alums Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell (on space bass and synthesizer, respectively), plus AF Next Man Flip (aka Afrika Baby Bam) of the Jungle Brothers, the latter of which I’d also recently discovered.

Like, how much more well-timed could you possibly get? NONE MUCH MORE, howled the Overlords of Mount St. Whatthefuckery. Praxis drummer Brain was a mystery to me, but he would eventually work his way further into my life by contributing to future Buckethead and Praxis albums, as well as Godflesh’s Songs of Love and Hate and, apparently,… Guns N’ Roses? What a spicy little bit of soup we all bob around in.

What exactly was / is Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)? To be honest, I still haven’t much of a clue how best to categorize it beyond perhaps drawing some sort of parallel between the genre and… a pawn shop? Want a flugelhorn? Here you go. Need a flintlock pistol? Step right up. Literally looking for the kitchen sink? Corner, prep or farmhouse? Is it rock? F’sho. Metal? Sure! Punk? In spirit. Dub? You bet. Jazz? Slide into second. Funk? Abso-bobble-booble, baby. It is all these things in a way that is fully timeless to an extent where very few people would be able to tell the record was released 34 years ago if you played it for them today. Unique, to say the least.

I distinctly recall slapping Transmutation into the store player that evening to see what was up—my ears spinning with anticipation. It was a short experiment for the store, as the opening salvo “Blast / War Machine Dub” made a VERY FUCKING LOUD first impression. Piledrive Morbid Angel’s “Chapel of Ghouls” through a mixer with some synths woven throughout? Hey, why not. Maybe not the best choice as backdrop music for people flipping through Michael McDonald CDs, though.

As loud as the launch of the song is, though, its trailing 2.5 minutes very suddenly morph into a dub piece that’s spiced with space bass bubbling and electronic loops and twists that result in a very curious zonked cosmic trip that sets the stage for what’s to come quite nicely. And really, that’s the key emphasis throughout the record: Nothing overly complex, just a whole lot of seemingly disparate pieces being sewn together in a way that somehow feels logical and coherent. An improvisational sense, for sure, but with just enough premeditated design to not feel overly frantic or nervous.

MYSTERY: Just who the hell was the fellow whose name was stressed on the back cover as ‘CONCEIVED AND CONSTRUCTED BY BILL LASWELL’? I didn’t realize it at the time, but beyond being “a bass player, producer and label-head from NY,” Laswell was, and continues to be, a total castle-builder in terms of gathering curious artists from virtually any walk of life / classification in hopes of building something singular and ambitious that weaves rhythm and some form of hypnosis into the overall cook.

How that related to Transmutation was actually pretty straightforward: Given the background of the players, expect varying degrees of shred, funk and beat, and thread it all through a prevailing sense of electronic dub. There’s very little emphasis on vocals top to bottom here, beyond occasional howls, some spoken word, or curious little sound bites. It’s mostly just… strange jamming? Strange jamming that gives ample opportunity for each player under the spotlight.

Now, I say ‘mostly instrumental’, but there is one notable exception here in the form of “Animal Behavior,” a super smooth funk classic torn from the P-Funk playbook that puts Bootsy in the driver’s seat as he soooorrrrt of sings but mostly just preaches about totally rational things like “chicken of the sea, bobble.” It’s the record’s “big hit,” without question—enough to eventually warrant an edited video that nearly cuts the song in half. “Animal Behavior” delivers a totally crucial groove, some great table work, and a snazzy Worrell organ solo that’s sure to get you up and hustlin’, but what’s always stuck with me the most is how the track abruptly shifts into a beautiful nod to Eddie Hazel’s fondness for emotional melody as Buckethead takes the spotlight in the song’s second half. The long version AND official video (which I had no idea existed prior to this piece) provided below.

Following “Animal Behavior” is “Dead Man Walking,” a track that, following a swift stretch of blaring shred, quickly underscores Next Man Flip’s skill on the tables. Flip jumps between scribbles and various clicks, blips and trips, all while Brain maintains a crucial strut and Bootsy’s space bass levels with a thiccness guaranteed to inspire any passing living creature to G A W motherflippin’ K.

Were all parties involved in the recording of this album higher than 10,000 Chongs throughout the duration of Transmutation’s creation? I have no clue, and I’m not exactly condoning such a thing, but it does seem… feasible, given the album’s propensity for bubbling and tripping the hell out. Would a fully sober mind opt to close out a record like this with what amounts to 22 minutes of mostly improvisational oddness across two songs? Maaaaybe. I know I didn’t really appreciate “Giant Robot / Machines in the Modern City / Godzilla” (6:37) and closer “After Shock (Chaos Never Died)” (16:07) back in ’92 as much as I do today, but I am both more sober AND an odder duck these days, so who knows what the correct potpourri actually is.

Put it this way: if fully trippy long-form freakout jams aren’t really your thing, you can close out this expedition at a very respectable 34 minutes by jetting directly after the very excellent “The Interworld and the New Innocence,” another moody number indebted to Funkadelic that gives Bootsy’s space bass the spotlight. I especially appreciate the way this track eventually morphs into some sort of deep sea expedition where a very funky giant squid gets down whilst Worrell goes nuts on his synthesizer / melodica.

Praxis as an entity would continue following the release of Transmutation, but never again with the unassailable lineup featured in ’92. Bootsy and / or Bernie Worrell made a couple of appearances here and there, most notably for the song “Deathstar” on record number two (1993’s Sacrifist), but the bulk of what happened post-Transmutation was the result of a Laswell, Buckethead and Brain union. I would remark that Sacrifist is the next most worthy exploration, as it most closely relates to extreme metal by featuring guests such as Mick Harris (Napalm Death, Painkiller, Scorn), Yamatsuka Eye (The Boredoms), Blind Idiot God and the aforementioned John Zorn, but for my money, the Praxis debut remains the apex predator because of how engagingly and strangely it managed to hybridize hard rock, extreme metal and funk amidst peers AND well ahead of the imminent arrival of (gulp) nu metal.

So, here’s the 10¢ question to close things out: Could a record like this make the same sort of impact today as it did 34 years ago? That very question has been rattling around the emptiness between my ears for the better part of the last few weeks as I’ve prepped for this monstrosity. Answer: Beats the shit out of me! As mentioned earlier, the album doesn’t sound at all dated, thanks largely to the level of fearlessness, but it also doesn’t seem quite as quirky by today’s standards. I’m not entirely sure if that’s rooted in my familiarity with all of its peculiar curls and hollows or if it’s due to the presence of, you know, bands like Melt Banana, Boris, Angine de Poitrine and any number of other projects that specialize in futzing with boundaries. One thing I’m certain of, though, is the truth that Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) landed at an incredibly auspicious point in my life where I was inclined to molt from ‘pure metal freak’ into ‘full-scale music freak’, and I will forever be grateful for the hand it played in helping to launch a lifetime of unfettered musical exploration.

Addendum: The motivation for this article, other than highlighting a stone cold classic, originated from an unfortunate development related to Bill Laswell’s recent health. Below you will find a link to the gofundme created to assist in his care. It’s close to the stated goal, so please consider donating if resources allow. Get well soon, Bill. We need you back in action!

https://gofund.me/c64552335