FRANK ZAPPA - Jazz From Hell (Ryko)

[dot_fennel]

Relieved, for once, not to have lyrics in the music. It reduces the chance that I'll love this but at the moment I'd rather not confront the question of what Zappa had to say for himself by 1986.

Much better than the Synclavier pieces on Mothers Of Prevention. Much, much better; the percussion sounds synthetic but not FAKE. On the other hand, superficially, the more 'out' sections sound a lot like the weird drum outro in the Loud Family's "The Second Grade Applauds" that Scott Miller once explained was generated by accidentally leaving the sound on while dragging the mouse across the screen with the "misc. percussion" voice selected in your sampler software.

In fact, the one piece with live instruments is the one which sounds overprocessed/insincere/lukewarm. The sad truth is that I would probably like this a little better if it were programmed into a Game Boy by Bit Shifter or someone like him, and yet I like it enough.

(Me #20, Zappa #47.)