In my most cynical moments, I find myself thinking that musicians make the worst music. Concerned with technique, theory, and taste, they make music that's much more fun to analyze, play, or simply jawdrop at than it is to listen to. Untrained musicians, concerned more with making the appropriate noises than whether they do so "correctly," often produce more compelling work. Buckethead is a musician. He's a regular collaborator with Bill Laswell, who produces a couple of tracks here - and who, if current trends continue, will release three-quarters of all music in the year 2010 (one techno artist recording under twenty names will release the rest); he's been raved about by all those people who write for those magazines named GUITAR (there are at least ten, right?); he wears a hockey mask and an empty fried chicken bucket on his head. And either he plays too many notes, to no particular end, or he gets "thoughtful" or "meditative" and makes me think I'm on hold to Microsoft. I suppose I should have respect for someone who's worked so hard to develop such impressive technical skills. But expecting those skills to lead necessarily to good music is like expecting an auctioneer to make profound, thoughtful speeches.

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