Primus

Primus is the joke that learned to bite. Led by Les Claypool’s elastic, perverse bass, the trio turned funk metal, prog, punk and cartoons into a language of its own, grotesque and precise. In the 1990s, it became an alternative to alternative rock: less catharsis, more strangeness. Even when paying tribute to Willy Wonka or painting colorful fables, the band sounds like a circus sinking into a swamp.

Why listen to Primus?

Claypool’s bass makes the absurd march in line, drunk and utterly disciplined.