# Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)

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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 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, hip hop, ambient, jazz and blues, creating a unique style of avant-garde music, with extended guitar and keyboard solos, and highly improvised passages.
The album spawned an EP, A Taste of Mutation, and a single, "Animal Behavior".

## Track listing

Note: Track 8 contains an interpolation of the title theme from the Japanese TV series Giant Robot, a rendition of which also featured on Buckethead's Bucketheadland 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:
** Bootsy Collins – 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
* Thi Linh Le – art direction, photography
* Aldo Sampieri – design

## A Taste of Mutation EP

Four song from the album were released as an EP under the title A Taste of Mutation.

## Animal Behavior single

"Animal Behavior" was the only single released from the album and was the first and only single released by Praxis. It was chosen as it was the only song of the album to contain lyrics. The vocals were performed by former P-Funk member Bootsy Collins, 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 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.

### Video

A video by François Bergeron was released to promote the album and single, featuring the band performing in night vision while fighting against hostile robots and monsters. The video clip was played on MTV's Amp and was included in Buckethead's 2006 DVD Secret Recipe.

### Personnel

* Buckethead: guitar, toys
* Bootsy Collins: 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