John Zorn NAKED CITY

Personnel: John Zorn (alto saxophone); Yamatsuka Eye (vocals); Wayne Horvitz (keyboards); Bill Frisell (guitar); Fred Frith (bass); Joey Baron (drums).
This record is an exercise in beautiful, torturous, perfect anarchy. Naked City, the early '80s project of super-experimentalist John Zorn, was a band that consisted of New York downtown avant giants Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Fred Frith and Joey Baron. With Zorn's elastic sax blazing the trail, and occasional guest vocals by Yamatsuka Eye (whose style bears no slight resemblance to the Tasmanian Devil of Warner Brothers cartoon fame), Naked City literally seem as if they can do anything. Rock, jazz, heavy metal, film music, swing, country, surf noir and sheer sonic assault are deconstructed, jumbled, spliced and spit back backwards with style, finesse, aggression and virtuosity.
The group's originals range from jump-cut collage to splatter-core noise, but what their aesthetic lacks in coherency it makes up for in imagination and execution. Particularly noteworthy are the band's many covers, which include treatments of Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, John Barry and a mind-blowing cover of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" (Coleman is an enormous influence on Zorn). Zorn and Naked City take the meaning of punk to a new level: mixing its attitude with intelligence and pan-genre sampling to create music of the highest and most challenging order.

• Format: CD
• Genre: Pop