Search - Naked City, John Zorn :: Radio

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Michael Stack | 03/10/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The jazz and the rock n' roll, the surf and the grindcore/metal weirdness....it's all here and presented in such a way that once you start listening you are hooked. If you are new to Naked City I would strongly suggest that you start your collection with either "Radio" or their first self titled release and work your way to their more abstract and hardcore material (e.g. Heretic, Absinthe, Torture Garden/Leng Tch'e). Enjoy the ride.I thought it was kind of amusing that in the liner notes for "Radio" that Liberace and Conway Twitty were listed among Extreme Noise Terror and Napalm Death as "Inspirations and References". Just goes to show you how diverse these guys are."

Another stunning effort from Naked City.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 01/13/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Radio" is yet another about-face in direction for Naked City. At once more accessible and yet more difficult than much of their previous work, "Radio" is a chance for John Zorn, after having honed a new form with "Heretic", to experiment with his musical loves, to reflect his influences (which he enumerates in the liner notes).



Each song is presented in a different style-- much of the material borders on commercially viable (well, by Zorn standards anyway). The amazing part of this album is that the musicians prove remarkably resilient-- everything is performed at a stunningly high level, regardless of style. There's a feeling of looseness and fun with these songs, unlike the self-titled debut, there's not as much jump cut feel to this-- each song holds its style for its length.



Some of my favorites on here are early on the record, almost a Morricone meets Brian Wilson filtered through Zorn-- "Sunset Surfers" and "Tekmani Teepee" are the clearest examples of this, and the opener is a great, wailing free-jazz with wailing sax and guitar piece. Probably most important to note is the presence of Bill Frisell on guitar-- this is really some of the best playing he's ever done-- track by track, any lead he plays is just brilliant (check "Asylum", "Triggerfingers", or "Terkmani Teepee" for good evidence). Its also nice to hear Wayne Horvitz using a clean piano sound for the first seven tracks rather than organ and synth sounds-- this helps with the more open feeling of the album and, I suspect as a result of this choice, a lot of this material swings pretty hard. Even the organ used on "Sex Fiend" gives it a on Big John Patton feel, not a haze that we had on earlier albums, ditto for the Tony Williams Lifetime inspired "Razorwire", which doesn't quite swing, but has that great fusiony feel.



The album starts changing a bit with "Krazy Kat", this one is actually in the jump cut style of the debut album, but it has an almost breezy feel to it, hard to describe really.



After this, the album moves into more of a metal direction-- its not really the sort of hardcore stuff that we saw on the debut, but rather more varied. One standout track ("Metaltov") is eastern European (proto-Masada?) feels layered with electric guitars, a lot of it is pretty noisy and chaotic, but again with a lot more space in the sound and longer idea development, plus concrete melodies. Its definitely a lot more intense and more difficult than the early part of the album but still very digestable. And we still get inspired work from Frisell.



Overall, its a great album-- it may be a better place to start with Naked City, but I don't think its one of their strongest records."