Peeping Tom / S/t

Anticon

Years in the making, Peeping Tom is noise-rock renaissance man Mike Patton’s most accessible effort since his days in Faith No More. Like the landmark ’60s thriller that inspired its name, Peeping Tom’s modus operandi is devoid of physical intimacy. Patton wrote each song with a theoretical collaborator in mind, hoping his musical dream team would return the compliment by contributing to the finished tracks. The final 11-song opus features a lengthy and refreshingly incongruous cast of guests. “It’s an exotic way of working for someone accustomed to a band environment,” Patton says. “It was charming, really. None of the usual Animal House stuff. Instead of swapping spit and underwear, we were swapping files.”  Lack of face-to-face interaction didn’t keep long distance collaborators from turning in exceptional performances: Norah Jones’s lascivious “Sucker,” Kool Keith’s “Getaway” and Massive Attack’s”Kill The DJ” are intense and passionate as anything a live band environment could have produced. The album also includes contributions from Amon Tobin, Bebel Gilberto, Dub Trio, Kid Koala and several of Patton’s Bay Area running buddies, such as Dan “the Automator” Nakamura (who teams with Rahzel on “Mojo”), and anticon’s Jel, Odd Nosdam and Doseone. The end result is an utterly unique multi-genre/multi-artist listening experience, one that would ultimately have to be classified as a pop record — a Mike Patton pop record — but a pop record nonetheless.

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