Frank Zappa, Hot Rats

Zappa's first after jettisoning the Mothers of Invention, this brash and breathtaking landmark of acid fusion seamlessly blurs the lines between prog and jazz in over forty minutes of wild-eyed bliss. (Also wild-eyed: the GTOs' Miss Christine on the cover emerging hot, pink and bothered from a concrete crypt.) All six tracks are stellar but "Peaches en Regalia" is the undisputed jewel from its infectious hooks, fascinating multi-instrument harmonies and startling production effects like buzzy reeds yipping away at double speed like kazoos; its little brother "Son of Mr. Green Genes" is nearly as good for nearly the same reasons, and Zappa even got something consistent out of Captain Beefheart for a change as the sole vocalist on "Willie The Pimp." Loses its fifth star solely for its more meandering moments not being everyone's cup of tea, and that's truly the only reason, because instrumentally and technically the album is near peerless. Hardcore Zappatistas will menacingly scrap over the relative virtues of the original LP mix (resurrected on current CD pressings) versus the 1987 Rykodisc CD, the latter largely reflected in a substantially expanded "The Gumbo Variations," but I'm not that rabid and "frankly" either is excellent. It should also be noted that Zappa himself did the 1987 remaster, so there's no use appealing to authority. (Content: mild adult themes on "Willie The Pimp.")

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Frank Zappa, Francesco Zappa

No relation, apparently. Now, mind you, classical music (even the synthetic variety) is not the normal brief of this reviewer, but I salute this rather unusual entry in the Zappa canon on three levels: first, it's delightfully obscure, second, it's delightfully different, and three, it's delightful. It is exactly as it bills itself, a digital performance ("his first digital recording in over 200 years," proclaims the album cover) of some of the notable or at least easily obtainable works of this lesser known Baroque-era Italian composer, no less and no more. The Synclavier's relatively limited tonal oeuvre does wear out its welcome a bit too quickly despite Zappa's light touch and short tracks, and frankly (hah) you could have just as easily said Wendy Carlos did this and no one would notice, but it did clearly satisfy his dual artistic goals of advancing the formalism of pop music while simultaneously giving big ripping middle fingers to the pop music industry. And hey, that's worth something. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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