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Mike Patton & Amon Tobin "Don’t Even Trip"

Friday, May 19, 2006

Mike Patton has made an entire career on an irascible refusal to do anything the same for any length of time. Over the course of three records, Mr. Bungle went from psych-circus-metal to ambient electro-weirdness to Brian Wilson-on-a-meth-binge. He took Faith No More from a skate-metal band through the best all-time Faith No More record (Angel Dust) to another pretty good two albums, then shut up. Of late, he’s used his planet-sized voice, which has more ADD stylistic range and oft-hilarious variation than a phonebook of good singers does, to sneak into your panties (that Lovage thing), and to buttress a shitty Bjork record (Medulla) with squeaks and half-shouts. And then there’s that film-score thing and Tomahawk that I haven’t listened to. My friend Jolie met him once outside a Bungle show in Cincinnati, and I was totally across the street in that laundromat/bar place updating my cell phonebook. Apparently he’s shorter and buffer than he comes across on television. He’s getting ready to release a new collabo-record, under the title Peeping Tom, and he’s got Amon Tobin, Bebel Gilberto, Doseone and Kool Keith on board. Of course, he’s the most noticeable guy in the room, or whole hallway of rooms with other rooms inside them, and thus the record mostly sounds like Mike Patton sings with other people nearby, which can be okay, but not when he relies too heavily on his scary metal screamy voice, which he does way too much here. On “Don’t Even Trip” (mp3), though, he allows Amon Tobin to take a break from scoring video games to offer up one of his trademark Castlevania themes, over which Patton sings, “I know that assholes grow on trees, but I’m here to trim the leaves.”

Peeping Tom will be released on Patton’s Ipecac label. Myspace.

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