Member:
Pnoom
Date:
9/26/2007
Anyone who’s read my other John Zorn reviews knows that he ranks among my favorite modern composers, and I can safely add Moonchild to the list of albums that earn him that honor. This is the first album of his most recent trilogy (the other two are Astronome and Six Litanies for Heliogabalus. This set of three astounding albums showcases what is probably John Zorn’s greatest strength in music: being able to bridge the gap between composition and improvisation. On earlier releases, he would compose rules that defined how the musicians played in relation to each other, leaving the actual notes played up to the discretion of the musicians. The most famous of these “game pieces” is Cobra. On this most recent set of albums, he mixes composition with improvisation in a different way. Parts of the album are entirely composed, while, in other parts, Zorn orally related his vision to the musicians, who then improvised based around Zorn’s instructions. Please note that Zorn does not actually play on this album. As the first album in this trilogy, Moonchild is less focused, less cohesive than its two follow-ups. It’s still a brilliant album, but the other two are more brilliant and probably either one would be a better intro to the trilogy than this album. Once you do know those two albums, however, this is definitely an album to get for plenty of reasons.
The most obvious and convincing of these reasons is that this album rocks. It’s fast, dynamic, and it draws your attention like moths to a flame. At times, it manages out-brutal brutal metal without being in the least bit metallic. Instead, Joey Baron’s pounding drums create some of the most interesting drum patterns since the heyday of Chris Cutler and Charles Hayward in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Trevor Dunn (of Mr. Bungle and Fantomas fame) pushes his bass to the absolute limit, redefining the possibilities of the instrument (there is no guitar on this album, only Dunn’s superb bass), and Mike Patton does… what Mike Patton does. He screams his head off, he breathes, he whispers, and, on top of that, he does just about everything else, too. While not as diverse as his vocals on Astronome and Six Litanies, his work on Moonchild provides yet another example of his unrivaled brilliance on vocals. While he is not my favorite vocalist, I cannot deny that he is one of the most original vocalists in the history of music, and he is at his very best here, entirely forgoing any sort of human language. When all of these aspects come together, such awesome tracks as “Hellfire,” “Abraxas,” “Possession,” and “Sorcerer” (among others) are born.
Amidst all this chaos, however, is control (in two senses), and that is the second reason to get this album. In the first sense of control, it is obvious that Dunn, Baron, Patton, and especially Zorn know exactly what they are doing, even when the music appears to be completely freaking out. In an instant, it will all pull together and it will be clear the significance of a particular portion of the music. In the second sense of control, I mean that certain tracks are not all-out assaults on your ears. Songs such as “Ghosts of Thelema,” “616,” and “Moonchild” (as well as a few others) are fairly calm, allowing the listener to breathe. These softer songs (which correlate to softer sections on the later albums, where chaos and calm can both be found within a single song) are not as well integrated into the album as they are on Astronome and Six Litanies, but they still flow reasonably well. The biggest flaw is that some of them, notably “616” and “Moonchild” drag on a bit too long for their own good. Overall, however, they add an extra dimension to this album that makes it all the better.
The third reason to get this album (and the final reason I will mention, though there certainly are more) is that it is one of the prime examples of extreme avant-garde music. To those who aren’t fans of extreme avant-garde, I can see why this would be a turn-off, but I propose that if Zorn can’t get you into extreme avant-garde, you probably won’t ever get into the genre for the simple reason that Zorn is by far the best of the bunch, and the Moonchild/Astronome/Six Litanies Trilogy is his best work (at least of what I know so far). Of course, if you already are a fan of extreme avant-garde and don’t know these three albums, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? One of the albums from this trilogy should be your next purchase and, after you learn to love it to death, the next two should quickly follow.
For those who don’t mind loud, brutal music with nonsensical and often disturbing vocals, there is no better album for you to get than John Zorn’s Moonchild (except, of course, for Astronome and Six Litanies). This is one of my favorite modern albums, a prime example of John Zorn’s brilliance and a slap to the face of all those who think that nothing exciting is happening anymore in the progressive rock world. We can debate in circles about the progressive rock credentials of John Zorn, but I consider Moonchild, Astronome, and Six Litanies to be 100% prog rock. Whether or it’s prog or not, Moonchild is still a brilliant album that easily deserves an A- (near masterpiece) rating. Get it today.
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