John Zorn's Naked City - Naked City (USA 1990)

The John Zorn Discography No.17

The first Naked City Album is not quite what I expected. Having already listened to "Torture Garden", I was expecting mostly more of the same bludgeoning hardcore noise assaulting my ears for the 26 tracks here. Instead we get a fabulous mix of Jazz, surf, pop and Hardcore all mixed together on some great and catchy tracks, sometimes all in one song. The mellow Jazz of "The Sicilian Clan" is one of my favourites, a real catchy and instantly memorable number which is followed by a track that has several genre changes within the one and one half minutes of it's duration. A standard ploy of Naked City. The brief Hardcore tracks are good but I do prefer the more melodic and conventional tracks of which there are several outstanding examples, again all incorporating many different elements, like "Latin Quarter" an excellent boogie blues, another stand out track. The first section of the album consists of the nine longer tracks of fantastically played , complex music, before we get assaulted by the middle section of 8 full-on Hardcore thrash tracks of very short duration, after which we get back to some longer format tunes to finish the album, starting at the other extreme with a very pleasant and very mellow jazz number. The rest of the album genre hops along with an outstanding version of the James bond Theme being a highlight. An outlandish and eclectic collection of music and a must have for any fan John Zorn .Rating 5/5.