1+1 Review

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(More customer reviews)This a return of sorts for both artists...but a return to what? What we here is not the HH of Maiden Voyage, or the WS of the Miles Davis Quintet that produced such masterpieces as Nefertiti...this is music that escapes categorisation, and by that I do not mean that is 'fusion' or 'crossover.' With no support from drums or bass, the two musicians have to plumb the depth of their artisry to find compelling ways to paint beautiful pictures on blank, hostile canvases. If you've only previously experienced HH on something like 'Future Shock', or Shorter on a Weather Report album, you'll be in for quite a shock. This is music of illusion, dreams, and serenity. Familiar sounds poke there heads through the mist, then dissappear again just before you can identify them. At times, it doesn't work, but at others, notably 'Memory of enchantment', it's perfect. Is it classical...jazz...who cares. It's sublime.

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Black Box Review

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(More customer reviews)Naked City's post-modernist music belongs to every genre and to none, a baneful musical poltergeist that reassembles its surrounding into an web of chaos. As for the Blackbox collection, these are both definitive Naked City albums. If you could only own three Naked City albums, it would have to be _Absinthe_ and these two.
_Torture Garde_ features 42 tracks, only a few of which last longer than a minute. In these skillful collages, Naked City tightly binds together multiple genres and hops between with reckless abandon, usually played at breakneck speed. "Speedfreaks", the most extreme example, lasts 50 seconds and changes styles and tempos every second or two. Often heavy and loud, with John Zorn's alto sax screeching over blaring hardcore meltdowns or noisy free jazz terrors. There is also Yamatsuka Eye. He's basically just insane. He gabbers and gibbers and screams and shrieks and roars and flies into rabid fits of seizures that seem unrelenting until Naked City hops into something else. Overall, this is some of the hottest playing you'll ever hear. The liner notes come with some grotesque images: stills from Japanese S&M films (nothing very graphic, mind you), a WHACK paintings by Japanese artist Maruo Suehiro.
Then there is _Leng Tch'e_...
"Leng Tch'e" (hundred pieces) was an old Chinese torture ritual where the victim was pumped with opium to prolong his life while he was slowly dismembered. Picture such a dungeon in the Ninth layer of Hell, now imagine its soundtrack. This is one of my favorite John Zorn compositions by far. Of all Naked City songs, this is the most violent and painful, but disturbingly pleasurable like some dark fantasy. A horrible antipodal rapture and agony, it is breathtakingly simple -- a continuous build-up starting on roaring guitar feedback and gradually adding drums, and Yamatsuka Eye's tormented vocals, and finally Zorn's screaming sax, climaxing at a place very different from their starting point and yet constant in its agony. Musically stunning, minimal and gripping, _Leng Tch'e_ is music that seems to play itself, inevitably pouring from a crack in the wall of reality. Eye and drummer Joey Baron are absolutely amazing here, adding so much to the intensity of the music.
Tzadik says:
"A specially-priced double-CD reissue, Black Box couples two of Zorn's most extreme and violent creations with the controversial music and artwork intact. Torture Garden (1991) presents Naked City's intense and groundbreaking music combining free jazz, bebop, r&b, country, funk, rockabilly, surf, metal hardcore and grindcore -- usually in the same song! This avant supergroup has influenced scores of bands including Mr. Bungle, Dim Sum Clip Job and the Boredoms (whose singer Yamantaka Eye is a featured guest on these two albums). The rare, seldom-heard, Leng Tch'e (1992), released only in Japan, and long out-of-print, features Naked City in an agonizingly slow, brutal 32-minute assault."
Your music collection can never be complete without a little Naked City.

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Majestic Silver Strings Review

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(More customer reviews)I didn't like parts of this album at all the first time I listened to it. Indeed, more than once I found myself thinking "what was he thinking?" With repeated listenings, however, I started to get it.
This album is unlike anything Buddy has done before. It is far and away the most ambitious album he has undertaken in his entire career.
Yes, some of the usual suspects show up (Ann McCrary, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Lee Ann Womack, Emmylou Harris and, of course, Julie.
But then there's a bunch of folks you wouldn't expect. First, you've got Bill Frisell (one of jazz's pre-eminent guitarists whose musical roots are very broad and very deep), Marc Ribot (another world-class guitarist whose past work has been labeled no wave, free jazz and Cuban among other things - trust me, Marc doesn't fit in a box any more than Bill does), and Greg Leisz (who plays just about anything with strings exceptionally well). [Greg's steel guitar will make your skin crawl it's so good] Together with Buddy, these four men constitute the Majestic Silver Strings, which will play as a group at the Grammy Museum in LA on Thursday, March 10th (only show scheduled that I know of). Add in Chocolate Genius, a floating member group centered on Marc Anthony Thompson, a New York-based singer/songwriter, and you've got a heck of a mix.
The album (the promo copy I have been listening to) states that it is "Buddy's re-imagination of classic country songs, loaded with guitars, atmosphere, and attitude." That's about as apt a one-line description as you're likely to find. That's also why there's a bit of culture shock at first. Most of these are not typical country arrangements; indeed, some are arguably not country at all (the cover of "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie's" layered guitars are much more jazz and avant-garde, some of it downright dissonant at times - but it works).
As I've listened to this album I've had a lot of reactions and thoughts. There's a dark, brooding melancholy underlying some of the arrangements and singing. Some of the arrangements are reminiscent of Ry Cooder's "Jazz" album with a real turn-of-the-century 1800s/1900s feel to them ("Meds"). Some are lush and deeply layered, some are pretty stripped down and spartan. You can legitimately say that the album is a hodge-podge, but it all works nonetheless and it's cohesive as an album.
The best songs for me (and these may well change in the future) are Buddy and Ann McCrary's take on "No Good Lover," Marc Ribot's "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie," the upbeat, jazzy instrumental "Freight Train," Buddy and Marc's "Why Baby Why," and the simple, straightforward "God's Wing'ed Horse" by Buddy and Julie that closes the album. That said, there's not a bad song on the album, just some that aren't quite as effective as others.
I'm sure some A&R moon unit at a super-sized label would have tried to talk Buddy out of working with Bill and Marc, and possibly out of making such an album at all. And on my first listening, I might have agreed. Careful, repeated listenings, however, revealed more and more; it lives up to the old adage, more will be revealed. After 8 full, careful listenings (three with the headphones on), all I can do is shake my head and think "Buddy, ain't that ol' boy something." Indeed, he is.
This album has its flaws and faults, but they are almost completely lost in the huge shadows cast by the sheer ambition of what is attempted and the brilliance of what is achieved. There is an old saying that there is nothing new under the sun; well, this album is something new under then sun and it goes places no one has been before. This is one of the most important albums to be released this year in any musical genre. Plus it's pure pleasure to listen to.
Recommended without any qualification or reservation.


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The Majestic Silver Strings is Buddy's reimagination of classic country songs with unrestrained guitars, atmosphere and attitude. Buddy and the three acclaimed guitarists Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz (together they are The Majestic Silver Strings) together push each song into a new cosmos warped in reverb. Guest vocalists include Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Lee Ann Womack, Chocolate Genius and Julie Miller.

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