ALTERED BEATS: ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED contains experimental hip-hop remixes of music from other Axiom Records projects. It was "generated" by Bill Laswell and features a variety of guest DJs, producers and performers including Bootsy Collins, Prince Paul, DJ Krush, DXT and Jah Wobble. Producers: DJ Krush (track 4); DXT (tracks 7, 10); Scott Harding, New Kingdom (track 11); Spectre, The Ill St. (track 14). Compilation producers: Robert Musso, Anton Fier. Engineers: Prince Paul (track 6); Robert Musso, Oz Fritz, Jean-Pierre Sluys, DXT, Koichi "Oppenheimer" Matsuki, Scott Harding. Recorded at Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York; Show-On Studio, Tokyo, Japan; Paul's Coffee Shop, Long Island, New York. Includes liner notes by Bill Murphy and Rammellzee. Samples include "If 6 Was 9" (as performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience). Personnel: Bootsy Collins (vocals); DJ Krush (programming). Liner Note Author: Bill Murphy . Recording information: Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, NY; Paul's Coffee Shop, Long Island, NY; Show On Studio, Tokyo, Japan; Show-on Studio, Tokyo, Japan. Photographer: Rick Day. Unknown Contributor Roles: DJ Disk; DJ Q-Bert; Jah Wobble; Jerome Brailey; Liu Sola; Mix Master Mike; Rob Swift ; Shortkut; Valis ; Bill Laswell. This collection of Bill Laswell productions is obviously a labor of love put together by a man who misses hip-hop's old school. Though it features artists as current as Prince Paul, DXT and New Kingdom, the album's focus on turntable scratching and a preponderance of relatively simple, monolithic beats make it sound like a period piece. That's not a bad thing, especially when Laswell imbues the proceedings with an up-to-the-minute ambience and a rumbling bass (as in bass guitar, not 808). But the complete absence of rapping -- the only thing that keeps this from actually being a hip-hop record -- may leave some listeners scratching their heads. Instead, we get a Bootsy Collins cameo (never a problem) and the occasional sample of a right-wing radio preacher. Some of the scratching is truly virtuosic; in particular, witness the retro-ensemble sound of the Filipino turntable group the Invisibl Skratch Picklz and the quicksilver manipulations of DJ DXT. Laswell's production overlays everything with a spacy, ambient sheen. ~ Rick Anderson