Colma (1998)

6.5

Whitewash / For Mom / Ghost / Hills of Eternity / Big Sur Moon / Machete / Wishing Well / Lone Sal Bug / Sanctum / Wondering / Watching the Boats with My Dad / Ghost (Pt. 2) / Colma

Bucky goes ambient. Actually, he’d done that before, using the Death Cube K pseudonym/acronym, but whereas albums like Dreamatorion could qualify as ‘true’ ambient, albeit of the darker kind, Colma only flirts with the genre. While Buckethead is still most famous because of his eclecticism and hi-tech style that incorporates thirty years of hard rock history, jazz and avant-garde elements, Colma finds him toning down the adventurous, genre-bending tendencies. What you get instead are gentle, contemplative soundscapes that have more in common with Eno/Belew than with Vai/Satriani. Helped by Primus’ Brain, Buckethead takes care of acoustic and electric guitar and bass duties, and while his bass parts are kept very basic, it’s the sheer elegance and fluidity of his playing that’s most striking. The drumming is sparse and hypnotic and a few songs (“Hills of Eternity” for instance) contain minimal scratching that never gets in the way of the guitar playing that’s more concerned with texture and melody than flashiness or complexity. Even though a less-talented guitarist wouldn’t even dare thinking about recording stuff like this, it captures Buckethead at his most humble and introspective. It’s mellow and soothing music that’s perfectly suited for background music when you’re not up for anything upsetting, and it’s also the exact opposite of say, the hectic, sonically all-over-the-place Monsters and Robots.

Unfortunately, the homogenous feel of the album is also its main flaw. If you consider it one huge, 50-minute instrumental, then this is album is a dream come true, but when looking at the songs themselves, it’ll be very very hard to distinguish them from each other. The first four songs, for instance, basically share a similar tempo, the same beats and the same guitar tone. The melodies are different, but he stays in the same register. There are a few exceptions – “Big Sur Moon” is a short interlude capturing only Buckethead and his hammering technique, while the Laswell-produced “Machete” features a funkier backbeat and fierier soloing. But basically, these 13 songs offer little variation, both stylistically and sonically, and while the first thing is only a problem if you’re not in for the nearly new age qualities of the album (Yanni, you better watch your back), the guitar tone and recurring rhythmic patterns might become tiresome after a while. Luckily, there are a few more upbeat distractions to keep you awake like “Sanctum,” or a few songs that have strikingly beautiful melodies (“Ghost (Pt. 2)”). All in all, Colma shows about 10% of what Buckethead is capable of, but if you’re coming from a conservative background that has so far succeeded in protecting you from the aural blitzkriegs that are available, then maybe Colma is the ideal place to dive into his extended discography.

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Monsters and Robots (1999)

8.5

Jump Man / Stick Pit / The Ballad of Buckethead / Sow Thistle / Revenge of the Double-man / Night of the Slunk / Who Me? / Jowls / The Shape Vs. Buckethead / Stun Operator / Scapula / Nun Chuka Kata

Combining the enigmatic presence of The Residents with the adventurous spirit of John Zorn, while placing himself somewhat nearer the mainstream world, Buckethead must be one of the most remarkable artists working today, and in many ways. His identity is still unknown, due to the fact he constantly wears a mask like Michael Myers and a KFC-bucket on his head, but considering his incredibly many-faceted skills on the guitar, people have suggested that the guy behind the mask could be Steve Vai, or any other high-tech guitar robot. He’s been involved in several avant-garde projects (Praxis is probably the most notorious), several of which also included Bill Laswell and even John Zorn, while at this time he’s also still a member of Guns ‘n Roses (now that’s a guy who’s all over the place!). Monsters and Robots is undoubtedly the most accessible and hard-rocking of his albums that I’ve heard, but in some way they’re all as pleasantly eclectic and weirdly schizophrenic. Aided by some great musicians (Les Claypool and Brain from Primus, Bootsy Collins on a few tracks, a great DJ called Phonosyncographdisk and some other ones), but clearly the main focus on his album, he creates an unlikely but successful merger of metal riffing and other assorted fret-freaking on the one hand, and techno rhythms, hip hop beats and lots of outlandish stuff on the other hand, and on most of the track it works great.

“Jump Man,” the album opener, and “Night of the Slunk” are the most successful tracks in which techno beats are quite dominant: while the first one is a hard-hitting rave-up basically employing one recurring riff - until the second part of the song where he gives Pantera a run for his money - with some sections during which Buckethead hits as many notes as possible, the second one basically uses the same guitar parts but relies more on the ambient-like electronica. “Stick Pit,” “Revenge of the Slunk” with prominent scratching by DJ Phonosyncographdisk and “Jowls,” with Kerry King-styled guitar screams rely more on thrash-riffs, but Brain and Claypool also make sure the funk level is kept high. The most conventional track on the entire album is probably “Stun Operator,” with its menacing guitar parts and virtuoso bass slapping by Claypool who leads them into Primus-territory. The remainder of the album isn’t as easily classified: during “The Ballad of Buckethead,” Claypool tells the mock biography of Bucky (“He’s the bastard son of a preacher man, on the town he left a stain, they made him live in a chicken house, to try and hide their shame”), while Mr. Extravagant himself, Bootsy Collins, brings Parliament, hip hop and Mr. Bungle together in “Sow Thistle” and “The Shape Vs. Buckethead.” Somewhat outcasts among the freaks are “Who Me?” and “Nun Chuka Kata.” The hilarious first one is a track with only Buckethead playing an acoustic guitar and sobbing each time he plays a false note, while the album closer must be one of the greatest songs of 1999. Driven by propulsive drumming, a repetitive line on guitar and some frenzied scratching, it’s a track that steadily intensifies and gets louder and louder, until Buckethead’s guitar playing nearly explodes into this gigantic wank-fest near the end of the song, an apotheosis that sounds as if Eddie Van Halen, Frank Zappa and Steve Vai are trying to outdo each other. Not all of these tracks are as successful – “Sow Thistle” is more freaky than interesting, “Jowls” milks a riff that’s not that interesting, while “Scapula” just can’t compete with the techno-metal of “Night of the Slunk” – but the best among them confirm that besides being an admirable musician and full-time puzzle, Buckethead is also one of the most unique musicians around, one who’s able to put more creativity into a single song than the band he’s currently a member of has delivered in a dozen years. If he does it to finance albums like this one, you won’t hear me complaining, that’s for sure.

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Electric Tears (2002)

6.5

All in the Waiting / Sketches of Spain (for Miles) / Padmasana / Mustang / The Way to Heaven / Baptism of Solitude / Kansas Starm / Datura / Mantaray / Witches on the Heath / Angel Monster / Electric Tears / Spell of the Gypsies

71 minutes and one second of slick new age noodlin'. You'd expect Buckethead to come up with something extreme & brutal while being a member of Axl W. Rose's troupe, but no such luck. Electric Tears is basically Colma, Vol. 2, entirely instrumental and ambient, yet even more mellow and minimalist. This time around, all tracks - except for "Sketches of Spain," which is an (abridged) interpretation of Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" (also adapted by Miles Davis) - were written, composed, arranged and played by Buckethead, so it's a guitar-only album. He usually juxtaposes acoustic and electric parts, as such creating gently shading sound blankets that balance somewhere in between breezy classical, folk, new age and the occasional hints of flamenco and blues. "Pretty" is the key word, as one tasteful melody follows the next and one movement fluently morphs another one. However, everybody's favorite mystery musician realises that prettiness is much more intoxicating with a dash of melancholy, and so several of these tracks have a dream-like quality with a hint of sadness to them. Titles like "The Way to Heaven," "Baptism of Solitude," and "Spell of the Gypsies" are also appropriate, just like less obvious picks "Padmasana" (the traditional lotus-position), "Datura" (a herb that's a deliriant) and "Mantaray" (a kind of stingray). However, at one hour and 11 minutes, Electric Tears is also quite a chore to endure, since only the repetitive blues riff of "Kansas Storm" offers a break from this succession of elegant instrumentals, many of which almost sound like they could've been used on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, had they been written with a full band in mind. By consequence, Electric Tears works fine as background music - especially if you're a dentist, chiropractor or psychic - but doesn't present nearly enough variation for repeated listening.

Read album reviews of similar or related artists: John Zorn

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