By Justin Nicholls

But in the wake of Living Colour's breakup of early 1995, Reid finds himself in somewhat unfamiliar territory. The cult of personality has dissolved, and Reid consequently finds himself searching for a new niche, a place he can call home. Oddly enough, the musical home Reid first inhabited was a fluid and often fluctuating one. Terms such as "cutting edge" and "genre-bending" were regularly applied to Living Colour throughout their ten-year career. But unlike other experimental groups, the four piece were widely known for their ability to blend musical forms while still keeping their music melodic and, importantly, listenable. This was due, in no small part, to Reid's wide vocabulary with not only his guitar, but also to his song-writing. However, as the band's music progressed from the youthful and exuberant debut Vivid to the murky tones of their final record Stain in 1993, times in the Living Colour camp were becoming notably darker. While never hesitant to speak their collective mind on such varied issues as racism, environmental degredation and elvis sightings, the industrial harshness of "Auslander" and the frantic buzzsaw of "This Little Pig" from Stain gave impetus to the new super-cynical and brooding version of the band which once bopped along to "What's your favourite colour baby? Living Colour!".

Whether this new-found darkness was a contributing factor to the band's passing is unclear; the band members citing musical differences as their most significant motive. What followed was the inevitable Best of... release in late 1995, which included four previously unreleased songs which were recorded during the band's final session in London. As a retrospective, these four gave some indication as to what shape Living Colour's next album would have taken. With searing guitars, distorted vocals and lyrics like "I tried to turn your hand/You burn my hand/I tried to bite your hand/You bite my hand/These are happy times", the landscape the band were traversing was to be bleak indeed.

With Mistaken Identity, however, Reid almost entirely sidesteps the enveloping darkness, coaxing all his guitar dreams down from their ethereal recesses and making them real. While displaying the occassional dark edge, Mistaken Identity finds Reid in superb form, his guitar moving smoothly between jazz arrangements and wailing leads, dispatching both with aplomb. The helter-skelter nature of the record, which swings back and forth between some very disparate pieces of music, was made simpler by the production duo united by Reid for the recording sessions - Prince Paul and Teo Macero. Macero, well known for his long career in producing jazz musicians the calibre of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Thelonius Monk, seems to be an odd companion for Prince Paul, who has produced such hip- hop acts as De La Soul and Grave Diggas. This is pairing, however, is brought into focus after examination of the veritable hotchpotch of guest musicians: Don Byron on clarinet, DJ Logic on turntables, drummer Curtis Watts, rapper Chubb Rock and Leon Gruenbaum on the perhaps unique Samchillian Tip Tip CheeePeee.

Despite the remarkable variety of sounds, there is a strong and central theme to Reid's first full-length album since Living Colour's breakup--the search for his musical self. With songtitles like "What's My Name", "Who Are You", the title track, "Signed Fictitious" and "Uptown Drifter", it soon becomes obvious that this sprawling work represents Reid's exploration of the differing facets of his musical id, not so much where he fits in to the music industry itself, but as to what his original motivation to record was. Mistaken Identity finds Reid trying to recapture what must have been the original force behind his and Living Colour's music: a sense of fun. The challenges of keeping Living Colour fresh and vital in a world of constant touring, appearances and contractual obligations obviously took their toll on Reid, and here he endeavours to harness the basic thrill and gratification music held so long ago. One of Reid's strongest features is his creativity, and it is this which makes his solo debut so endearing to my ears. The sounds which fill the album are delightful, at times so intricate that it takes repeated listenings through headphones to take it all in, but at the same time not so dense as to make the songs turgid or sluggish. The balance between thrash and melody, darkness and light is perfectly wrought by both the musicians and the producers alike.

Over the course of Mistaken Identity's sixty three minutes, Reid reveals something his fans knew all along: that very few musical styles are out of his reach, in terms of both song arrangement and his fretboard. Reminiscent of Living Colour's 1990 opus Time's Up, Mistaken Identity opens to the ticking clocks and ringing bells of "CP Time", an opener which quickly displays the poppy leads and skipping samples which seem to mate and multiply all over the record. Here Macero and Paul have mixed Reid's searing, almost futuristic licks with DJ Logic's turntables magnificently, interspersing these with samples of John Lee Hooker's "Helpless Blues".

Despite Reid's apparant desire to distance himself from the Living Colour legacy, many offerings from his solo effort do dabble in riffs that are reminiscent of the Living Colour bass-heavy bop. Among these are the rhythmic and soaring title track, and the rap- driven curdle of "Signed Fictitious", which features Reid's acoustic picking counterpoint. But perhaps the most intriguing of the bunch is Reid's composition entitled "Saint Cobain", a respectful tribute to the late Kurt Cobain that in a lesser artist's hands would sound trite. A sample intoning "You gonna miss me when I'm gone" leads into some crashing guitar work by Reid, notable because of its resemblance to a certain Cobain tune. While "Saint Cobain" refuses to deviate from the basic groove, it's sheer snarl is nonetheless a worthy tribute.

Many times, however, it is the tunes where Reid truly tests his skills which are most interesting. One of these, "The Projects", opens with a slowly building cacophony of percussion and sampled instruments, beginning rather tamely but soon growing more insistent. The pounding and almost tribal backbeat essentially drives this song, Reid only managing to match it's lope by wrenching yet another withering lead break from his guitar.

Two songs which feature Don Byron on clainet are also highlights. The first, "What's My Name", is a frenetic journey through a land where velocity is a requirement, and the downbeat is always two steps ahead. Byron keeps pace with the beat admirably, but is eventually overtaken by Reid and his ear-popping fretwork. Byron's other major effort is on the much more leisurely track "Mysterious Power". Here Reid strays from his stack of amplifiers to lay down a lilting acoustic foundation (which if not for the drum loop and scratching could have turned into a significant elevator chart-buster) leaving Byron to become the focal point.

The album ends up sounding like a catapault ride through Reid's musical history and, it seems, his future. But does he figure out who he really is by album's end? From this vantage point, the answer would seem to be yes. He is still a hugely imaginative and creative musician, and has managed regain his grasp on the most basic element of all musical forms: enjoyment. With Mistaken Identity, Reid has both honoured and cast off the memory of Living Colour, carefully crafting a group of distinct musical elements into a cohesive and entertaining package which any musician would be proud of. And if that is not enough, Mr. Reid, Mistaken Identity proves one thing beyond a shadow of doubt: you are one hell of a guitar player.