It's hard to believe that Terry Bozzio once played drums for Missing Persons. In fact, his post-Eighties output has been so eclectic and so experimental that his distant past can easily be forgotten.
But Prime Cuts celebrates Bozzio's more recent past - the last decade or so he's spent with U.S. label Magna Carta. This collection gathers a wide diversity of his work (solo material, collaborations with bassist Billy Sheehan and keyboardist Jordan Rudess, the instrumental Bozzio Levin Stevens project and the multiple-artist progressive-rock beast known as Explorers Club) and attempts to put Bozzio's bizarro jazz-meets-electronica-meets-prog-meets-metal style into perspective. Given the high caliber of this music, a single disc that clocks in at less than 53 minutes simply doesn't do the man justice.
Sure, extras that include two previously unreleased tracks (the disjointed solo opener "Sick Jazz Surgery" and "Walking Dream," a short leftover from the BLS sessions for Black Light Syndrome), a bonus MP3 featuring another Explorers Club song ("Gigantipithicus"), frothing liner notes penned by Modern Drummer magazine's T. Bruce Wittet, and a candid video interview during which Bozzio discusses his early work with Frank Zappa and offers advice to aspiring drummers are nice. But they're not enough. An anthology of work by a musician as vital and complex as Bozzio deserves more than one CD with a grand total of eight tracks. This had the potential to be so much more …
Track Listing
1) Sick Jazz Surgery (Previously Unreleased)
2) Dangerous (Bozzio Levin Stevens)
3) Dreaming In Titanium (Jordan Rudess)
4) Last Call (Explorers Club)
5) Walking Dream (Previously Unreleased)
6) A Glimpse Into A Disturbed Mind (Terry Bozzio)
7) Edge of a Circle (Terry Bozzio and Billy Sheehan)
8) Melt (Vapourspace Remix of Bozzio Levin Stevens)