Naked City - 1992 - Heretic: Jeux des Dames Cruelles

Naked City

1992

Heretic: Jeux des Dames Cruelles

01. Main Titles (1:28)

02. Sex Games (2:23)

03. Sweat, Sperm + Blood (2:05)

04. Heretic 1 (2:33)

05. Submission (4:23)

06. Heretic 2 (1:46)

07. Catacombs (2:46)

08. Heretic 3 (2:43)

09. My Master, My Slave (2:23)

10. Saint Jude (2:13)

11. The Conqueror Worm (2:32)

12. Domintatrix 5b (2:16)

13. Back Through The Looking Glass (2:39)

14. Here Come The 7,000 Frogs (1:59)

15. Slaughterhouse/Chase Sequence (2:19)

16. Castle Keep (1:49)

17. Mantra Of Resurrected Shit (1:43)

18. Trypsicore (1:46)

19. Fire And Ice [(Club Scene)] (2:37)

20. Crosstalk (1:41)

21. Copraphagist Rituals (0:53)

22. The Brood (2:49)

23. Vliet (0:50)

24. Labyrinth (5:47)

- Yamatsuka Eye / vocals

- Bill Frisell / guitar

- Wayne Horvitz / keyboards

- John Zorn / alto sax, producer

- Fred Frith / bass

- Joey Baron / drums

Soundtrack for the underground porn movie "Jeux des Dames Cruelles" starring Karen Finley.

Recorded and mixed at Shelley Palmer Studios, NYC, 1991

If you enjoyed other Naked City albums art, this one will make you happier than ever. Here, John Zorn leads an all original soundtrack for a bondage fetish/s&m erotic experimental movie, this album is totally out of the ordinary limits. Well, it can't be better than Naked City's debut or Grand Guignol (both are Magnum Opus into avant-garde), but it beats the same weirdness level. Different from the other two masterpieces of the band, this album does not sound like a demented Carl Stalling, full of quick style shifts. It focus on noise and strange musical texture. It reminds me of some of John Zorn solo albums, but hell, the Naked City line-up is perfect for a disaster, and you can't get any better into an Avant-Garde album: Zorn, Frisell, Yamatsuka Eye, Wayne Horvitz and Joey Baron.

Naked City's tenure as a workshop for a rock group's compositional opportunities led to this album, which is performed mostly by subsets of the full group. Only one track of the 24 includes all six band members, the relatively anonymous "Fire and Ice (Club Scene)," where Joey Baron, Fred Frith, and Bill Frisell set up a slow funky groove for Wayne Horvitz and John Zorn's improvisations. The rest of the pieces are all performed by various duos (12 tracks) and trios (11 tracks). The exploratory nature of the groupings means that there are many fewer references to popular music styles compared to other Naked City albums, and the pieces all sound improvisional. As such, every listener will find his or her favorites, but all of the pieces are of high quality, as befits a grouping of great improvisers that form the group. The two duos by Zorn and Yamatsuka Eye (where they match each other squeal for squawk) or the ones between Zorn and Frith (who have demonstrated their close empathy in other sessions before and after Naked City) are particularly noteworthy. Although this album is credited as a soundtrack for a porn movie (scenes from which decorate the sleeve art), its music will appeal to many improv-oriented listeners who have a hard time with the thrash/hardcore atmosphere that is so characteristic of the band's first album and the Torture Garden pieces.