John Zorn
IAO, Music In Sacred Light

The Divine Comedy Of John Zorn: Inferno. 

Talking about John Zorn is impossible. Or at least, it's difficult to do so without associating adjectives like "genius," "mad," "sick," "eccentric," "creative," and so on. It's also challenging to try and translate into words what his records express in sound so spontaneously and gracefully.
The fact is, I am revisiting much of the discography of this genius (there, oops, I've fallen into it) mad saxophonist (AGAIN!) and listening to "IAO" left me dumbfounded.
As far as I'm concerned, we are facing one of the highest points of his solo career, but I'm not so sure, given his career is peppered with an almost infinite production of works (it's a good thing: I'll have Zorn records to discover until the end of my days. I'm happy) sometimes unmissable, other times pleasant, and others still decisively dispensable. However, the charm is never missing. Every Zorn record, even the least attractive, is always inspired and a reason for interest.
Here resides his genius: pure eclecticism, giving his best in both the extreme (my total favorite Zorn, that of Naked City, Painkiller, "Six Litanies For Heligobalus") and the sweetness (the very pleasant, crystalline "The Goddess: Music For The Ancient Days").

Eclecticism that is found in this "IAO," the musicalized inferno. A record that is heterogeneous, yet incredibly cohesive. A work where the various souls of Zorn meet to form something capable of ranging from a 13-minute (beautiful) tribal ride named "Sex Magick" to the dark-ambient with noise bursts of the marvelous opening "Invocation."

Each piece is a world unto itself, a circle unto itself, a sensation unto itself. The more you proceed, the more you descend, discovering how the heart of the beast pulses unstoppable and with great violence. You discover the two peaks of the album, masterpieces: first and foremost, "Lucifer Rising," an angelic choir of cherubim surrounding a paradoxically soothing luciferian female orgasm and, above all, "Leviathan," the stunning eardrum-splitting sonic violence that is something unmissable, able to return to the best moments of Naked City.  

Noise? Avant-garde? Metal? Drone-Doom? Ambient? Classical? There's even a piece of glitch electronica ("Clavicle Of Solomon")!

If for other (albeit mad) Zorn albums, it was easy to find a reference genre, a sort of sonic thread, here it is almost impossible. The miracle lies in the thematic flow, in how these pieces are made to coexist so superbly as to leave one dumbfounded.
Each piece, as we said, is a circle unto itself, but the album is the whole hell that contains them and makes you descend further and further until you find the devil himself. 

I never thought that being condemned could be so pleasant. 
I've returned from limbo just to tell you.