Barnes & Noble
The little trio that could take a tad of dissonance into the mainstream by driving with deep grooves continue to roll along the same track they established with 1998’s Combustication. Keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood chug along through a set of original tunes with an array of DJs and guests. DJ P Love adds turntables to the classic organ trio sound on “Pappy Check.” Deep-throated singer Col. Bruce Hampton creates a beat-generation vibe with his rap on “Your Name is Snake Anthony,” while DJ Olive’s turntables, Danny Blume's guitar, and Eddie Bobe's percussion add an edge of unpredictability that even Lenny Bruce would love. As the set progresses, the group moves further into the experimental with the spacey “Take Me Nowhere,” the trip-hoppery of “Nocturnal Transmission,” and the industrial, funk-sparked “The Edge of Night.” Uninvisible is quite a ride through the sounds of today, and the scenery is never dull. Roberta Penn
All Music Guide
Uninvisible is further than ever from conventional jazz organ. While blues and funk influences are evident throughout the album, they float on a sea of shadows. Sound sources are obscure or exotic; on "Pappy Check" innovative scratching by turntablist DJ Olive creates an impression of African percussion more than club atmospherics. Even where the instrumentation is less ambiguous, the trio steers toward a filmic noir sensibility, with Medeski leading the way in unorthodox techniques. His pitch-bend solo on "Take Me Nowhere" suggests the creak of a rusty hinge, with Wood's acoustic bass providing the anchor for his abstractions. Wood is in fact often mixed higher than Medeski, to the effect of reducing the keyboard parts to a sideline role and the album in turn to an exercise in mood more than virtuosity -- an impression enhanced by a similarly eccentric shrinkage of the power guitar part on "The Edge of Night" to a barely audible background element. The rhythm is steady and stealthy, a slow-motion oscillation between live and looped tracks, most often with a hip-hop sensibility. More important, every musician on each cut plays with a belief that overplaying only subverts the goals of collective improvisation. If any one album can be said to pick up on the surreal funk explorations of latter-day Miles Davis, Uninvisible is it. Robert Doerschuk
Billboard
Medeski, Martin and Wood turn in some of their most satisfying and accessible work in years on Uninvisible