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".
"Giant Robot/Machines in the Modern City/Godzilla"
6:38
9.
"After Shock (Chaos Never Died)"
16:20
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.
"Animal Behavior" was the only single released from the album, and was the first and only single releasesd by Praxis. It was chosen as it was the only song of the album to contain lyrics.[3] 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,[4] 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 EPA 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.[5] 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.[6][7]
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[8][9] and was included in Buckethead's 2006 DVD Secret Recipe.
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