Naked City
Radio

The Naked City band members are already a bunch of raging lunatics; imagine what could emerge when they decide to do something truly crazy...

"Radio" is the penultimate act of the creation by John Zorn, after just 5 years of collaboration and a series of insane works already behind them: from their self-titled debut (from noir film atmospheres to grind shards) to "Leng Tch'e", a 32-minute drone-doom composition about a particular Chinese torture, but I could name them all.

The album brings the musical process of the group to its definitive completion: whereas in other albums there were more mini-sketches of pieces of assorted genres, now they become fully-fledged compositions with finally "standard" durations. The spectrum of genres is further expanded (some tracks pass through multiple genres within a matter of seconds) and this gives an unprecedented identity to each of the 19 episodes that make up the album.

As the title itself wants to emphasize, the idea is that of a radio station collage. The album can be divided into two very distinct parts: in the first part (the first 9 tracks) more relaxed and laid-back atmospheres predominate, with catchy melodies. Just the initial triplet knocks us out: "Asylum" is a compendium of genuine, high-class free-jazz, where each musician in turn provides their solo contribution. It is followed by the laid-back "Sunset Surfer" with its Californian surf music atmospheres, and we can almost imagine ourselves at sunset lying on the sand facing the ocean with a drink including a little umbrella in hand and a Swedish blonde in a bikini by our side. The final blow comes with "Party Girl", a frenzied 50s rockabilly with dissonant and arrhythmic sax inserts (how much fun must Zorn have had recording it?). In the remaining tracks, the tones begin to change, between police film atmospheres (the tense "The Outsider"), or "Razorwire" semi-jam sessions where everyone goes wild and does their own thing. The only moment of pause is given to us at the end by the soft pianistic ambient of "The Bitter and the Sweet".

The second half of the album opens with "Krazy Kat", a virtual continuation of that "Speedfreaks" present in the previous album, maintaining its underlying coordinates, and that is to change genres every few seconds... hard to describe with words, let yourself be enchanted! "The Vault", slow and oppressive, but with more than a funky twist, allows us for the first time to hear the king of vocal extremes, Yamatsuka Eye, the only possible singer for the musical proposal of the band. His piercing screams and vocal games, incompatible with the atmospheres of the first part of the album, break out in almost all the remaining tracks, between disturbed grindcore fragments and made even more violent by the sax. Not even one of Zorn's loves, the klezmer, traditional Jewish music, is neglected but rather dominates in "Metaltov".

To act as a bridge between the two so different souls of the album, there's the concluding "American Psycho", a real collage of musical genres no longer united but alternated by seconds of silence, almost to increase the anticipation of what awaits us: swinging melodies, jazz, or blues suddenly interrupt, 2 drumstick hits and the sonic earthquake begins with imposing guitars, furious drums, and Eye's screams dominating the scene. The same singer also gives us a glimpse of his extreme versatility, between gurgles on the verge of suffocation and Zack de la Rocha-like rap parts.

MUSICAL MADNESS.