Search - Naked City :: Complete Studio Recordings

Among the most powerful music ever recorded.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 03/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This boxed set represents the entire recorded studio output of John Zorn's Naked City project, consisting of Zorn (alto sax, occasional vocals), Bill Frisell (guitar), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Fred Frith (bass), and Joey Baron (drums). Frequent collaborator Yamataka Eye joins as a vocalist on probably half of this. Additionally, this set includes a "vocal version" of "Grand Guignol", which Mike Patton overdubbed.



I'll talk about the packaging first-- the set is beautiful, nice white box, each of the five CDs housed in a digipack styled after the Zorn birthday CDs-- single page inside an envelope opposite a CD tray with some of the original artwork reproduced. The book is about a hundred pages of pictures, some stuff from zorn's notebooks that's quite fascinating and will likely require further inspection on my part to fully appreciate, and annoyingly hard to read clear pages with white print on which members of the band, fans, etc. comment.



The remastering-- the recordings are clean, loud, distinct, undistorted-- they've been mixed hot enough to sound great but really well done. There's stuff buried on here I missed in the original recordings, and I suspect more will reveal on repeated listenings.



Question has been called into the material present-- there's a disc with "Naked City", one with "Grand Guignol" (the album), with the new version of the title track appended to it (and the old one still intact), one for "Heretic", one for "Radio", and one for "Absinthe" with "Leng Tch'e" as well. This is ALL the material, INCLUDING "Torture Garden"-- that particular release was just the "hardcore miniatures" from "Naked City" and "Grand Guignol".



The music-- I'm not going to talk extensively about this here, I've reviewed each of the albums independently, but I'll touch on sort of themese a bit-- Mike Patton is quoted as saying "This band made the rest of the world sound fat and lazy". This is totally true, not only that, it made them sound dated-- Naked City's debut is sixteen years old now but is still sounds ten years ahead of the present time. The rest of the material follows suit.



"Naked City" (the album) is now referred to as jump-cut-- it switches genres, sometimes several times within a single song. The performance is of extraordinarily high quality, and this is one of the absolute great albums of recorded history.



Nearly as good is the followup, "Grand Guignol"-- consisting of three sections, the lengthy, haunting, title track, somehow sensual and mysterious, 34 hardcore miniatures (brilliant explosions of genre crossing-- one ("Speedfreaks") covers a different style every 2-3 seconds), and a series of classical covers performed in an "electric chamber" style, reminding us Zorn is capable of beauty and ugly. The bonus track, "Grand Guignol" with Patton-- I first wrote this review in March of 2005 and didn't enjoy it. After nearly eleven months of listening to this, suddenly, it makes sense. Patton seems to be in place as an alternate, providing mostly melodic statements in contrast to the rest of the music, and it fits, it works, and I now think it's a distinct improvement over the original. But it took me almost a year.



"Heretic" is a much more difficult, yet in many ways, much more rewarding album-- consisting of a style unique to the band, its a series of pieces involving some or all of the band members in a wide open style-- think of it as free jazz taken with punk's intensity and volume performed by masters of their instruments. It IS difficult, primarily because there are very few concessions made for the listener, but it is among the best work any of these men have ever done.



"Radio" is like jump cut slowed down, or like dialing through the radio-- each song exlores a different genre, or rather a different genre alloy. Because of this, its a bit more accessible than the other material, though I feel personally it succeeds a bit less. Still fantastic music, however.



"Absinthe" is probably the most difficult of the works here-- its sort of Naked City does ambient-- the music is in fact similar to the "Grand Guignol" title track, in that it builds and bubbles, but unlike "Grand Guignol", it never seems to reach its climax, and its certainly turned down a few notches in volume. Nonetheless, the intensity is maintained and it is stunning. Pairing it with "Leng Tch'e" is an odd choice, the latter is a 30 minute workout, similar in form perhaps though-- it builds through drudging metal and threatens to overpower nearly everything in its extended climactic moments-- five minutes of Zorn and Eye wailing before melting back to as it began.



If you've got the albums, I think this is probably worth the purchase. The set is lovely, and the sound is incredible. If you don't have this stuff, or you're new to Zorn, try out the self titled album first-- all the material is great, but this is a large investment when this is definitely not for everyone. Give it a try though, it may surprise you."

Audio freaks listen first...

Andreas Melzer | Germany | 05/25/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not rating the music (that would be 5 stars!!!), I'm rating the audio quality. Though the overall sound quality is good (not as aggressive as the original discs), the entire "Radio" album and parts of the "Absinthe" disc (most obvious on the track "Leng T'che") suffer from unacceptable distortion in the left channel (in the low mids, depending on volume). At least my copy had this defect, so I returned it. I suspect that a mistake was made during the mastering process as my original Avant-Discs are not distorted at all. Or could it be an individual manufacturing issue? No other reviewer has mentioned this problem so far.



If you care for perfect sonics, I recommend listening to the following portions before buying. Pay attention to the left channel. Is it distorted?



Track 01 on "Radio" - time: 01:06 till 01:13



Track 10 on "Absinthe" - time: 04:16 till 04:40



These are only two random examples. The mentioned discs are distorted throughout. If others have clean sounding discs, I might just have had bad luck with my item.



Otherwise this expensive set is absolutely not worth it's high price. Tzadik should take it back and correct these mistakes first. Then I will be happy to buy it.



As for the book: nicely made, but lots of testimonials, no real information on the band and the music.



The package is hyperaesthetically designed.



If the abovementioned problems were nonexistent, I would not hesitate to rate it with 5 stars."

Not perfect, but you can't please everyone anyway...

M. Kinney | japan | 09/06/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First of all, for all the writers here asking where Torture Garden is, why don't you read the booklet. It explains that Torture Garden was released as a special package compliling the hardcore pieces from Naked City and Grand Guignol. Nuff said.



As another reviewer mentioned, Joey Baron is not credited at all on the Heretic notes, which I too thought was really odd.



Other than that, I have no complaints about the remasters. Sounds fine on my stereo and through my headphones. I mean, I don't have a very expensive elaborate stereo system, but to these ears, everything sounds wicked. Even if there WAS a bit of overload, I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown over it. I can see why some people would get edgy over it, after shelling out 100 bucks though.



The new Grand Guignol mix with Mike's vocals is a bit disappointing. Even though I'm a big Patton fan, I think he overdid it on this one. There's vocals where they're not needed in too many places. I don't really think it needs vocals, the piece seems to be darker and more luminous without them. Adding a few vocal bits in certain sections might have added a new dimension to the mood, but Patton just blew off too much. (Sorry Mike) Still, it is an interesting treat to hear and it makes me wonder how all these albums would've turned out if Patton would've been the lead screamer.



Anyway, I think overall, the set is great. Is it worth buying if you have all the originals? Yes, I think so. The only thing I wish Zorn would've included is more history in the booklet, and perhaps another disc of outtakes or unreleased tunes. I'm sure there's tons of stuff sitting in the vaults that Zorn is keeping secret until he feels lile releasing another boxset. Maybe we'll even get the Miles Davis treatment with his work someday, like a 7-disc set of "The Complete Grand Guignol" sessions, with one disc full of EYE doing nothing but farting and belching."