adrian belew - guitar, bass, drums, synthesizers, piano, vocals, programming, strings, horns, effects, manipulation, production
les claypool - bass
danny carey - drums
robert fripp - guitar
mel collins - saxophone
the prophet omega - voice
martha belew - voice
1) troubles
2) incompetence indifference
3) water turns to wine
4) crunk
5) drive
6) cinemusic
7) whatever
8) men in helicopters v4.0
9) beat box car
10) truth is
11) the red bull rides a boomerang across the blue constellation
12) &
Collector's Item
although these were released as three separate albums, it's really difficult to separate them....especially considering the titles....
there are a couple of different themes explored here. on the one hand, this is belew coming into the modern era, making a full use of modern recording equipment. there are uncharacteristic delvings into what is bordering on techno music; certainly there are some drum machines, which stick out given that belew's main instrument is not the guitar but the drums! on the other hand, there's a ton of ancient percussive sounds - tablas, sitars, etc. there are poems written in haikus. the general subject matter seems to be something moving towards the psychedelic, often questioning the validity of reality.
claypool & carey appear on a few tracks, but they don't take over the tracks. once somebody says "hey, that's claypool"....well, you'll never forget it, but you wouldn't immediately jump into knowing it's claypool otherwise. the subtlety they provide is maybe even a little surprising. the mere idea of a claypool/belew/carey trio is very old fashioned by today's standards, but both the bassist and the drummer prove here that they would be excellent session musicians if the mars volta ever called for them (perhaps replace belew with frusciante to get the true supergroup of the 90s....in 2010). anyways.
you can't go wrong with any of these if you like belew. there's enough weird vocal parts to satisfy those that like his poetics, enough songs for those that like his songs and enough noise for those that just want the noise......meaning i suppose it's those that like all of it that will really enjoy these records. luckily, i fall into the latter camp.
the second one gets the slight nod. it's almost all belew, fwiw, without any of the big names listed above.
the problem with the third disc is not that it's weak so much as that it is anti-climactic after the second one.