''Sacrifist'' is the second album by

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

's experimental music project

Praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

, released in 1993 on Laswell's label

Subharmonic In music, the undertone series or subharmonic series is a sequence of notes that results from inverting the intervals of the overtone series. While overtones naturally occur with the physical production of music on instruments, undertones must ...

. Originally, the album was intended to be a

Rammellzee Rammellzee (stylized RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, pronounced "Ram: Ell: Zee"; December 15, 1960 – June 28, 2010) was a visual artist, gothic futurist "graffiti writer", painter, performance artist, art theoretician, sculptor and a hip hop musician from Ne ...

project, but soon was converted into the second Praxis album, after suggestions made by

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...

. The line-up features the core Praxis trio of Laswell, guitarist

Buckethead Brian Patrick Carroll (born May 13, 1969), known professionally as Buckethead, is an American guitarist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has received critical acclaim for his innovative electric guitar playing. His music spans severa ...

and drummer

Brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

. Additionally,

Bootsy Collins William Earl "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist and singer. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s, and later with Parliament-Funkadelic, Collins established himself as one of the leading n ...

and

Bernie Worrell George Bernard Worrell, Jr. (April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016) was an American keyboardist and record producer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll ...

(of

Parliament-Funkadelic Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive fu ...

), both also featured on the debut album, return for one lengthy track each: "Deathstar" includes Collins' "free-form bass explorations" and "Crossing" features Worrell's "psychedelic improvisation on a distorted Hammond organ". Vocals are handled by

Mick Harris Michael John Harris (born 4 October 1967) is an English musician from Birmingham. He was the drummer for Napalm Death between 1985 and 1991, and is credited for coining the term "grindcore". After Napalm Death, Harris joined Painkiller with Joh ...

from

Napalm Death Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in 1981 in Meriden, West Midlands. None of the band's original members has been in the group since 1986. But since ''Utopia Banished'' (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch ...

and Scorn as well as

Yamatsuka Eye (born , 13 February 1964) is a Japanese vocalist and visual artist, best known as a member of Boredoms and Naked City. He has changed his stage name three times, from Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka Eye, to Yamataka Eye, and sometimes calls hims ...

from

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan’s noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

. Saxophonist

and the members of dub band

Blind Idiot God Blind Idiot God is an American instrumental rock trio formed in 1982 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, by guitarist Andy Hawkins, bassist Gabriel Katz and drummer Ted Epstein. The phrase "blind idiot god" comes from horror writer H. P. Lo ...

are also featured. The music on the album is a mix of noisy speed/thrash metal with short interludes of

dub music Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican re ...

and hip-hop and samples of other media, namely the 1989 Japanese horror film '' Tetsuo: The Iron Man''.

Different pressings

Some CD pressings of the album have all the songs as one track in a somewhat lower sound quality and parts of the last track are missing. This reissue can be easily identified by looking at the back cover, which has the name of producer John T. Matarazzo listed.

Track listing

Personnel

*Praxis: **

- guitar **

- drums **

- bass and vocals **

Ted Epstein Theodore Jacob Epstein is an American drummer and founding member of the noise rock band Blind Idiot God. He also improvised in the band Slan, which included saxophonist John Zorn and guitarist Elliott Sharp. He has not been credited with a mus ...

- drums **

- vocals **

Andy Hawkins Melton Andrew Hawkins (born January 21, 1960) is an American former professional baseball pitcher and coach. Hawkins spent most of his Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the San Diego Padres, and also played for the New York Yankees and brie ...

- guitar **

Gabriel Katz Gabriel Paul Katz is an American bassist and founding member of the noise rock band Blind Idiot God. He performed with the band since its formation, recording three studio albums with them between 1987 and 1992. He also assisted bandmate Andy Haw ...

- bass **

- keyboards **

- saxophone

References

{{Authority control 1994 albums Praxis (band) albums Subharmonic (record label) albums