While this post-disbandment Mothers of Invention album from 1970 is definitely not Zappa's best, it's certainly an odd album. It plays with dual juxtapositions. What we have here is melody vs noise, straight beats vs odd time signatures, avant garde experimentalism vs pop leanings, beauty vs ugliness, accessibility vs acquired taste, instrumental vs vocal approach, improvisation vs writing and live vs studio. Quite spread out! While Zappa has flirted with all those extremes on many of his albums, this is the one where polarities serve to define its identity in total. Take "Toads of the Short Forest" for instance, an exquisite instrumental guitar ditty segues into harsh free-jazz jam with everybody playing in alternate time signatures. Or take "Didya Get Any Onja": on-stage atonalist assault being juxtaposed to polished R&B cover of Little Richard's "Directly From My Heart To you" with Sugarcane Harris on vocals and electric violin; and then back to madness with "Prelude to An Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask". Anyone who has enough patience to run through will be rewarded with track sequence 8-10. "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" is a groovy horn-and-guitar driven rock song with intricate Hot Rats like middle section to boot, "Oh No" as an eccentric jazz shuffle with Ray Collins delivering some strong vocals and "Orange Country Lumber Truck" with its cheerful upbeat melody segueing into guitar solo: only to end without warning and segue into the title track: basically what sounded like an ending of Mothers' concerts back then, is now a demonstrative track on its own. Its cathartic white noise could be seen as a fitting finale as it also could mark the end of the original Mothers of Invention era, as Zappa's next album "Chunga's Revenge" would feature a wholly new line-up and would be a 180 degrees departure from original Mothers' sound.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Weasels Ripped My Flesh
While this post-disbandment Mothers of Invention album from 1970 is definitely not Zappa's best, it's certainly an odd album. It plays with dual juxtapositions. What we have here is melody vs noise, straight beats vs odd time signatures, avant garde experimentalism vs pop leanings, beauty vs ugliness, accessibility vs acquired taste, instrumental vs vocal approach, improvisation vs writing and live vs studio. Quite spread out! While Zappa has flirted with all those extremes on many of his albums, this is the one where polarities serve to define its identity in total. Take "Toads of the Short Forest" for instance, an exquisite instrumental guitar ditty segues into harsh free-jazz jam with everybody playing in alternate time signatures. Or take "Didya Get Any Onja": on-stage atonalist assault being juxtaposed to polished R&B cover of Little Richard's "Directly From My Heart To you" with Sugarcane Harris on vocals and electric violin; and then back to madness with "Prelude to An Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask". Anyone who has enough patience to run through will be rewarded with track sequence 8-10. "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" is a groovy horn-and-guitar driven rock song with intricate Hot Rats like middle section to boot, "Oh No" as an eccentric jazz shuffle with Ray Collins delivering some strong vocals and "Orange Country Lumber Truck" with its cheerful upbeat melody segueing into guitar solo: only to end without warning and segue into the title track: basically what sounded like an ending of Mothers' concerts back then, is now a demonstrative track on its own. Its cathartic white noise could be seen as a fitting finale as it also could mark the end of the original Mothers of Invention era, as Zappa's next album "Chunga's Revenge" would feature a wholly new line-up and would be a 180 degrees departure from original Mothers' sound.
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