Audio CD review:
Frank Zappa - Lumpy Gravy

Frank Zappa - Lumpy Gravy

Band: Frank Zappa Title: Lumpy Gravy Rating: Release Date: 18 April, 1995 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Lumpy Gravy Part One: The Way I See It, Barry/Duodenum/Oh No/Bit Of Nostalgia/It's From Kansas/Bored Out 90 Over/Almost Chinese/Switching Girls/Oh No Again/At The Gas Station/Another Pickup/I Don't Know If I Can Go Through This Again 2: Lumpy Gravy Part Two: Very Distraughtening/White Ugliness/Amen/Just One More Time/A Vicious Circle/King Kong/Drums Are Too Noisy/Kangaroos/Envelops The Bath Tub/Take Your Clothes Off

Customer Reviews Daring Ugliness But actually there are moments filled with beauty mixed with furious sound collages and delirious talking from inside the piano. Zappa liked the concept of sounding ugly, thus the review's title. It can sound shocking when first listened, but later on the listener gets accostumed and finds a real sense in this piece that (in FZ's words) started out to be a ballet but probably did not make it. Furthermore, this is, in a way, the birth of "conceptual continuity" and the first record in which FZ showed why he was one of the best editors to ever work in a recording studio. Try and imagine Frank cutting and pasting tape like a mad sciencetist and putting bags of sand over the sustain pedal of a piano while already thinking about what to do on the next album. It must be said, though, that this album is not recommendable for those not interested in deep in FZ or avant-garde music. Pigs, Ponies and Kangaroos Either way if you enjoyed WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY you'll probably like LG too even though it isn't anywhere near as scathing as it's predacessor. From what I can understand (differing dates from different sources) it seems LG was recorded before WOIIFTM but released shortly thereafter. Gone are the nasty snipes at the hippy/flower power generation but some of the music is derivitive (or not) of WOIIFTM. Those renditions are either orchestral or at least instrumental and go to show how many different ways a single piece of music can be performed. The biggest difference musically is that this is essentially an instrumental composition. Along with the tunes are conversations about living in a drum that get revisited some thirty years later in CIVILIZATION PHASE THREE (a piano) and the introduction of Louis The Turkey who was nicnamed because of his bizarre laugh. Zappa gets into some dialogues in the PIGS and PONIES segments that introduce some of his earliest concepts regarding the physical universe, society and it's relationship to THE BIG NOTE. This is an album (CD) I hadn't heard for many years after WOIIFTM. Hearing it today ties much of what was happening in CPIII and LOST EPISODES together showing Zappa considered everything to be just an element in this one really big composition. . . a lifetime body of work. It's typical Zappa (if such a thing could ever be) in that it incorporates a musical genius' vision with irreverant naïveté creating something musically interesting and socially insightful. . The Ultimate Goofball Nightmare Opera Gone Haywire I love being strange, And this is one of my top 10 most out there albums, it gets alot of play on my stereo, odd noises talking about living in a drum and a couple of chicano teens talking about boogeymen. No normal person can enjoy this. deranged orchestrations, opera and surf music parody, plus it sounds way ahead of it's time, it still does now in the 2000's. crazy, sounds like a psycho's sweetest nightmare. . You can see a complete list of all Frank Zappa discography, or go back to the Frank Zappa tabs