Naked City - Radio [1993]

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Naked City - Radio [1993]

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Naked City - Radio [1993]
Contemporary Jazz / Avant-Garde
EAC/Flac+Cue+Log | Scans | 392 MB

Radio is all about combining different styles of music. In 19 tracks, the band references the musical styles of over 60 musicians, paying tribute to each one by blending them together. The combinations come in three forms. The first is block form, where the music shifts from one style to another throughout the song. For example, the song begins with funk, changes to bluegrass, then to jazz, then to something else. Most of the styles are aggressive and loud. The moments of silence that pop up here and there make everything else seem even more noisy. The final track, American Psycho, covers over twelve styles in six minutes.
The second form is the blend: two or more styles played at the same time. On Metaltov, Jewish folk music is played as heavy metal. It's a funny song, something you've probably never heard before.
The third form is a single style for an entire song. In this case, the song is a block of music within the rest of the album. Without the context of the CD, it's just another song. Party Girl, for example, is played straight — removed from the rest of the album, it sounds like a Little Feat song.
Using the title Radio, you can imagine that you're turning the dial from one station to another, picking up all kinds of different styles of music, cutting songs off to get to another station, and starting up in the middle of a new song. If Zorn wanted to make the concept obvious, he could have put a little radio static between the cuts. But he didn't.