Perhaps quite mainstream guy. I got first exposed to his work when I was still listening just heavy & thrash kind of stuff, thinking it's brutal stuff and then my cousin who had accidentally bought "Guts of Virgin" CD loaned it with some sort of "you think heavy metal is hard?!" kind of message.
For youngster this album was pretty tough to swallow. But it was basically just prelude for music tastes to shift within same year, that stuff like this wasn't hard to swallow at all.
I don't really follow what all Zorn does, and Tzadik label appears to be so dominated by jazz and radical jewish music I don't have much interest in, so have not followed so closely. Happened to be in Polish record store couple months ago and there was big selection of Tzadik stuff and I was quite surprised to learn that PAINKILLER actually released new album 2013!
It's recorded live 2004-5 in Warsaw and Berlin, perfect sound basically. Mick Harris has not been on drums since 1994, and there was at least one album with someone else. I didn't hear that, but now Tatsua Yoshida (Ruins etc) is doing drums. And actually that is improvement from Harris. Despite Harris without doubt has the intense was of blasting, Yoshida knows how to blast and how to do proper drum improvisations. CD has 3 tracks, prelude and Postlude are just 2-3 mins each, between stands "Prophecy" piece of length as massive as 65 minutes! In tradition of Painkiller, it's improvisation where painful high pitched sax, fast drumming what has more "punky" feel than just jazzy (althout now leaning more to jazzy direction with Yoshida) and bass. "Just improvisations", one could say that there are moments what go nowhere, but at best, it's among absolute best improv stuff, and also sax works are great. Listen the track at 28min mark, and damn.. I don't think I ever heard someone torture their saxophones like this. Certainly not every guy in underground gig jams thinking sax noise is just about honking goofy sounds.
I also saw there is Naked City "Torture Garden" re-issued with rare bonus materials. Quite curious about it, but didn't yet buy it. Find always annoying to buy some stuff, solely because of couple bonus tracks.
I loved naked city, painkiller, ecc.
back in the days and I quite like the more klezhmer influenced records of tzadik.
Loved kristallnacht, ecc.
No interested in the purely jazz records.
I think back in the days helped opening many minds in the metal scene to broaden interests, which was good.
Had a couple of cds, namely a collection of Coltraine "covers" and some orchestrated thing, both of which I got rid of - too much going on for my tastes. I have kept "IOA, Music In Sacred Light", who's tracks, while distinct from each other, are more together in themselves, and has a nice, genuinely dark feel over all.
Zorn is an incredible performer & composer. Masada, Naked City, Painkiller, "The Big Gundown", "Spillane", "Filmworks", his collaborations with Fred Frith... A true genius if there ever was one.
For my money, Naked City - Absinthe is his single finest collaborative work, and The Parachute Years is a top box pick and classic listening. I can't say I've found remotely similar enthusiasm for anything else I've heard.
Quote from: Zeno Marx on May 08, 2014, 11:48:52 AM
For my money, Naked City - Absinthe is his single finest collaborative work
I picked this up fairly recently, after taking (surprised) note of it in Zeno's list of ambient/drone recommendations. Quite unlike anything I would otherwise have expected, managing to hit both the correct ambient/drone notes and even getting into a bit of muted industrial scrapescape. If Zorn has issued anything even remotely along these lines I'd be all ears.
There's a lot of Zorn I appreciate; among my absolute favorites are some of the entries in the ongoing Book of Angels series (Feldman/Courvoisier, Jamie Saft Trio, Marc Ribot, Bar Kokhba, Erik Friedlander). Masada (and all its derivatives: Electric Masada, Masada String Trio) is fantastic. Lots of great music in the Filmworks series. There's lots of hit and miss, though; I liked some of the Dreamers things but a similar record like In Search of the Miraculous put me to sleep. Records like Taboo & Exile collect both brilliant and forgettable material. Still, there's lots and lots of great things to explore. Stuff like Naked City I find decent, but I remember being pretty disappointed at how little 'extreme' it was when I first heard that record. It had been made out to be some ridiculously extreme chunk of hyper aggressive jazz, but it's nothing like that.
I find Tzadik a hugely interesting label overall; there's so many great music in things like the Radical Jewish Series. Stuff like Steven Bernstein - Diaspora Soul, Paul Shapiro - It's in the Twilight, Ben Perowsky - Camp Songs, Sephardic Tinge - Morenica, Fima Ephron - Soul Machine... fantastic! Also lots of other great things on Tzadik like Satoko Fujii (even if her best works were released elsewhere), a brilliant Michiyo Yago solo CD, some great Haino and/or Tatsuya Yoshida recordings, ONJQ. Excellent label.
Saw two Zorn performances at North Sea Jazz a few years ago, one was a game piece, which was very nice to see, and one was pretty much a best of the Filmworks series. The last one especially was absolutely divine.
QuoteStuff like Naked City I find decent, but I remember being pretty disappointed at how little 'extreme' it was when I first heard that record. It had been made out to be some ridiculously extreme chunk of hyper aggressive jazz, but it's nothing like that.
I think Torture Garden is quite out there. It's not strictly jazz, but it's pretty crazy music; I'd probably call it "extreme". Especially the first roughly half of the album is great; after that, the songs are not especially memorable any more, but at less than half an hour, the whole album is still a great listen.
another vote here for absinthe, definitely my favourite zorn-related release. i can't think of anything else along similar lines off the top of my head though. i kinda burnt out on zorn over the years ... a zorn-obsessed friend has passed on bucket loads of his stuff over the years but my enthusiasm started to seriously wane sometime around the mid-2000's, around the time of all the magick themed stuff. of the mid to late 2000's stuff i've heard, i remember liking that first dreamers cd. i still really like the naked city and painkiller material, some of the game pieces and filmworks releases (i remember particularly liking the invitation to a suicide one), the morricone big gundown one, godard/spillane. am sure there's more i'm forgetting, the guy is insanely prolific and diverse if nothing else. but yeah, absinthe is probably the only one i return to on a regular basis
Quote from: Bloated Slutbag on May 09, 2014, 10:17:33 AM
Quote from: Zeno Marx on May 08, 2014, 11:48:52 AM
For my money, Naked City - Absinthe is his single finest collaborative work
I picked this up fairly recently, after taking (surprised) note of it in Zeno's list of ambient/drone recommendations. Quite unlike anything I would otherwise have expected, managing to hit both the correct ambient/drone notes and even getting into a bit of muted industrial scrapescape. If Zorn has issued anything even remotely along these lines I'd be all ears.
You might try his Enigmata album. More chaotic then muted though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ5n_TjY5Dk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ5n_TjY5Dk)
Love the JOHN ZORN FILMWORKS VII: cynical hysteric hour CD
Similar to a number of posts above, I recall hearing Naked city on an earache sampler which really opened up my understanding of what "extreme" music can be. Had the Painkiller and Naked City releases though the Leng tche album was my most-listened to of the lot
Kinda lost interest for a number of years and then it became such a volume of releases that it was easier to just ignore than wade in, but picked up a bunch of cheap releases second hand, mainly from the 50th birthday celebrations but i also picked up the Crucible album with Patton on vocals (which could be a negative depending on your opinion) and the Painkiller release mikko mentioned above.
What owuld be the recommendations for exploring further? Filmworks series, masada or electric masada? There seems to be so many releases so any advice on better releases from those series would be good
theres such insane amounts of releases from a guy who gets praise for every fart that its really up to one's own patience. i have not checked it out in ages but from when i still did i'd recommend: naked city "radio" + "torture garden", the first few masada albums for hi-energy crazy bebop, the first bar kokhba installments... the rest kinda is more like "if you liked this stuff then here is more of the same" -- it rarely gets any better, it's often as good as it gets from the get go. which is already mega good, but do you need 30 albums of the same, well go for it if you want. on the other hand, anything with joey baron on drums is always top shit.
I'm a huge fan of PAINKILLER. However that's definitely more of a sum of it's parts, Laswell is such a killer bass player and I love the sounds he gets on that. Mick Harris, just absolutely killer stuff. Zorn is great too but the rhythm section is what fucking makes that band. Execution Ground is fucking bananas. I've never been as into the other stuff Zorn has been involved with.
I love Laswell on Massacre's "Killing Time" LP in terms of fucked up out there sounds.....
Electric Masada "At The Mountains of Madness" is pretty good if a little too long for one sitting.
An old thread, but it is maybe worth bumping since Zorn has now organized a trilogy of new Painkiller albums?
I missed the first one, but I did pick up The Equinox (reviews online suggest that the second is the better of the two released thus far). While I have sampled other works from the project online, the only other sustained exposure I have had is through Execution Ground (which I enjoyed a lot). To my ears, the big evolution seems to be Mick Harris switching from real drums to electronic beats. Zorn's sax and the bass sound as good as ever, but I'm not sure how into the "techno" direction I will be. I would like to pick up the third installment when it is released next month if my local record store has it in stock.
Speaking of Tzadik generally, I was really pleased with the Terton album (Outer, Inner, Secret) for its very mellow free jazz and its emphasis on the texture of instruments playing off of one another. I was never one for big band jazz, but I like these trios.
It might also be worth bringing up that Zorn gets a brief but important mention in Novak's book on Japanoise, as being, according to the author, one of the key early people bringing in noisy Japanese music to the rest of the world.
Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on March 04, 2025, 06:49:34 AMI'm not sure how into the "techno" direction I will be.
Yeah I tried listening to this and it was pretty awful. Sounds like a cheap
Wolf Eyes imitation more often than not. It also doesn't help that
Mick Harris's online pettiness towards his old bandmates has gone from hilarious to just sad to watch. Kind of sours the whole thing in my eyes.
That being said,
Zorn/Tzadik does have some great stuff in the discography. I don't revisit often though. One underrated title is the
Masada record
Pat Metheny did.