Naked City - 1992 - Grand Guignol

Naked City 

1992

Grand Guignol

01. Grand Guignol (17:40)

02. La Cathédrale Engloutie (6:24)

03. Three Preludes Op. 74: Douloureus, Déchirant (1:17)

04. Three Preludes Op. 74: Très Lent, Contemplatif (1:42)

05. Three Preludes Op. 74: Allegro Drammatico (:48)

06. Prophetiae Sybillarum (1:46)

07. The Cage (2:00)

08. Louange Á l'Éternité de Jésus (7:07)

09. Blood Is Thin (1:00)

10. Thrash Jazz Assassin (:45)

11. Dead Spot (:31)

12. Bonehead (:51)

13. Piledriver (:33)

14. Shangkuan Ling-Feng (1:14)

15. Numbskull (:29)

16. Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh (:24)

17. Jazz Snob Eat Shit (:24)

18. The Prestidigitator (:43)

19. No Reason to Believe (:26)

20. Hellraiser (:39)

21. Torture Garden (:35)

22. Slan (:23)

23. The Ways of Pain (:31)

24. The Noose (:10)

25. Sack of Shit (:43)

26. Blunt Instrument (:53)

27. Osaka Bondage (1:14)

28. Shallow Grave (:40)

29. Kaoru (:50)

30. Dead Dread (:45)

31. Billy Liar (:10)

32. Victims of Torture (:20)

33. Speedfreaks (:48)

34. New Jersey Scum Swamp (:41)

35. S&M Sniper (:14)

36. Pig Fucker (:23)

37. Cairo Chop Shop (:22)

38. Facelifter (:54)

39. Whiplash (:19)

40. The Blade (:35)

41. Gob of Spit (:18)

- Bill Frisell / guitars, keyboards

- Joey Baron / drums

- Bob Dorough / vocals

- Fred Frith / bass, guitars

- Yamatsuka Eye / vocals, bass

- John Zorn / alto saxophone, vocals

- Wayne Horvitz / keyboards

This album is lovingly dedicated to Jack Smith. Legendary Filmmaker. Theatrical Genius. Exotic Art Collector. Father of the New York Underground, who died a victim of the AIDS virus September 18, 1989.

Note: tracks 9-41 are also available on "Torture Garden" (1990).

This album is practically impossible to describe, but Naked City's "Grand Guignol" is a humongous and pompous mixture of jazz, classical, avant-garde, grindcore and straight-up metal. Each keeps my attention even though they range from seventeen minutes to thirty seconds, they all just have something that really makes me have this feeling that I don't want to miss any of this. It's so shrill and loud but never ceases to be hauntingly beautiful.

From Zorn torturing his sax, to Yamatzuka screaming his head off, somehow this record remains coherent the whole time. That's why this record is amazing. As far as I know, nothing like this has been accomplished before. Even though the influences are apparent, the mixture Naked City makes with them is something truly original and loveable.

This album is not for the casual listener, but for the adventurous music fan it is a total must have masterpiece.

What you expect from a 40 seconds track with more than 25 tempo changes with weird time signatures? Now, this is ridiculous! Just the way I love, just the way it should be. Well, I had a lot of feedback and critics after my 5/5 review for the unknown masterpiece Plague Soundscapes from The Locust. My retard love for the bizarre made me find a lot of great music. I was looking for eroguro and this kind of crappy gross humor, like Kago Shintaro works when I found this amazing project by John Zorn. I found it because of the japanese splatter relations at the track titles. So, this album still elevates me to the highest level of dementia, in a sweet shitful nostalgia of my darkest days, when I was almost insane dealing with some psychological issues and hunting the ultimate strange music. For some reason, last weeks I'm searching for weirdest stuff again, and I found myself listening again to this: Naked City - Grand Guignol.

Imagine a musical festival. There is a battle between a free-jazz and a grindcore/powerviolence band, and a classical orchestra making a background symphony sometimes. But a violent napalm fell in Afrika, and the elephants burning escape to the concert destroying everything and screaming like faggots dying from pain. That's how Naked City sounds. The album has more than 40 tracks and includes a 17 minutes trippy song, a classical/jazz mixed suite and a bunch of shorts, tracks during a few seconds. John Zorn screaming saxophone is brilliant! Sounds like a hurt child asking for help or an elephant falling down the hill. Well, just take a look at Speedfreak, that's my favorite track, the kind of stuff that turns me on.