The Complete Studio Recordings

The Complete Studio Recordings

Artist: Naked City
Label: Tzadik
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Box set
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 7

UPC: 702397734420
EAN: 0702397734420
ASIN: B0006UYOMO

Release Date: 2005-03-22

Related Categories:

General Modern

| Modern, 20th, & 21st Century | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music

General

| International | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Movie Soundtracks

| Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General

| Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

General

| Soundtracks | Styles | Music

Experimental Rock

| Rock | Alternative Styles | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Experimental Music

| Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Listmania:

Brown Paper Packages Tied up with String
Diversify your collection... a sample of my cds
my favourite childrens books
John Zorn---he would hate this!
You Have Got To Love Bill Frisell!
Music for Thalidomide Babies

Tracks:

Batman
The Sicilian Clan
You Will Be Shot
Latin Quarter
A Shot In The Dark
Reanimator
Snagglepuss
I Want To Live
Lonely Woman
Igneous Ejaculation
Blood Duster
Hammerhead
Demon Sanctuary
Obeah Man
Ujaku
Fuck The Facts
Speedball
Chinatown
Punk China Doll
N.Y. Flat Top Box
Saigon Pickup
The James Bond Theme
Den Of Sins
Contempt
Graveyard Shift
Inside Straight

Tracks:

Tracks:

Main Titles
Sex Games
The Brood
Sweat, Sperm + Blood
Vliet
Heretic 1
Submission
Heretic 2
Catacombs
Heretic 3
My Master, My Slave
Saint Jude
The Conqueror Worm
Dominatrix 2B
Back Through The Looking Glass
Here Come The 7,000 Frogs
Slaughterhouse/Chase Sequence
Castle Keep
Mantra Of Resurrected Shit
Trypsicore
Fire And Ice (Club Scene)
Crosstalk
Copraphagist Rituals
Labyrinth

Tracks:

Asylum
Sunset Surfer
Party Girl
The Outsider
Triggerfingers
Terkmani Teepee
Sex Friend
Razorwire
The Bitter And The Sweet
Krazy Kat
The Vault
Metalov
Poisonhead
Bone Orchard
I Die Screaming
Pistol Whipping
Skatekey
Shock Corridor
American Psycho

Tracks:

Val De Travers
Une Correspondance
La Fee Verte
Fleurs Du Mal
Artemisia Absinthium
Notre Dame De L'Oubli (For Olvier Messiaen)
Verlaine: Part One - Un Midi Moins Dix
Verlaine: Part Two - La Bleue
...Rend Fou
Leng Tch'e

Similar Items:

At the Mountains of Madness
Collected Works (The Complete Studio Recordings 1991-1994)
50th Birthday Celebration, Vol. 4
The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone
Naked City Live, Vol. 1: Knitting Factory 1989

Customer Reviews:

This is it.......2006-10-08

The remastered music sounds a little better than the originals, but even if it didn't, this would be a required purchase: The complete studio albums of one of the best bands of all time.

It includes the most experimental, noisy album (Heretic), the ambient album (Absinthe), and the trio of hardcore/soundtrack/genre-bending albums (Naked City, Grand Guignol, Radio).

Packaged beautifully, with a scrapbook of photographs and short testimonials from a dozen musicians. The music sounds incredible the first time, but it takes a few months to absorb it all.

great music, flawed sound quality.......2006-07-03

This beautiful set has been described at length elsewhere, but I want to confirm what others have said about the occasional distortion. I've discovered it in many places - basically all the same as have been listed in other reviews. What a shame! I thought the whole idea of this set was to REMASTER the records - usually a process designed to make the music sound better, not worse. Oh well! If you're new to Naked City, it's still probably cheaper than hunting down the original imports on Avant.

It IS an amazing collection and even though I already owned all the originals, I still bought this set for the amazing book that comes with it. Just be sure that you understand that there will be some distortion before you spend $100+ on it.

Naked City was amazing.......2006-02-13

I bought this set of Naked City's studio recordings on the strength of their reputation, without having heard any Naked City music. It's all great stuff. Every album of theirs has a different approach. They covered a huge amount of ground in their career.

For people who don't know a thing about what this is (unlikely if they're on this page), Naked City was a highly experimental group of jazz musicians playing music that wasn't exactly jazz. This music is some of the most original material I've heard in my life. Only Mike Patton has come close to replicating what Naked City accomplished. Composer John Zorn on alto sax, Bill Frisell on guitar, Joey Baron on drums, Wayne Horvitz on keys, and Fred Frith on bass. Their sound was often augmented by a lot of other instrumentation. Vocals in their music was provided by 'Eye', who created a whole lot of wordless noise in manic and creative fashion. All the musicians are top notch, and the music is expertly composed and requires virtuosity to play.

The packaging is awesome. Conveniently sized and easy to file, good quality cases and liner notes. The CDs have a uniform but still interesting look to them... each album's case is a different color and the colors seem to fit the albums well. The Naked City s/t is magenta, Grand Guignol is tan, Heretic is black, etc. The 100 page booklet is full of interesting stuff.

The music and artwork of Naked City was of an over-the-top, surreal, violent and dark nature. As a warning to potential buyers- much of the artwork contained in this box is gory (animated and otherwise), sexually explicit and sadomasochistic. However, nothing serves these albums better. At their darkest Naked City reminds me of finding enjoyment in killing, deformity and strange perversions.

"Naked City", the first album, is one of the 2 'fun' releases. This album is a mix of what's now called 'jump-cut' (played by bands like Patton's Fantomas) and twisted covers of older songs by Morricone and Coleman among others. It's enjoyable and fits in with my impressions of the city of NY, reminds me of night clubs. The band takes Jazz to extremes, playing occasionally at grindcore speed and adding squealing free solos to the mix. Other reviewers have given more complete descriptions of this style.

"Grand Guignol" is the first plunge into utterly disgusting blackness. Named after the French theater of horror, the title track is a disturbing ambient mindtrip. Some more jump-cut tracks are included (from the same sessions as the first album) but the 'fun' element of them is almost entirely sucked out, leaving only nihilistic craziness. The final tracks of the album are covers of various composers (I haven't heard the originals) that are actually quite beautiful while remaining dark and alien.

On "Heretic", it seems like the band is trying to imitate the sound of certain situations which the song titles represent... not the notes, mind you, the SOUNDS. The instruments are used to create ambient sound effects, occasionally little melodies or ideas, but the band rarely plays in time or to a tempo. Some of these are really quite effective, but I think which ones depends on the listener. Pretty out there. Not unlike Patton's 'Oltrazista', on which Zorn also plays sax.

"Radio" is similar in feel to the first album. Naked City plays songs in the styles of their influences, which include everything from Jazz musicians to Napalm Death to SPK. Thus, the album has minimalist grindcore songs, more traditional jazz, experiments, and a few jump-cut songs like "Krazy Kat".

"Absinthe" is a mind-bendingly dark ambient masterpiece. Patton tried his hand at this idea on Fantomas' Delirium Cordia, which is more unified than this album due to being one song. Every composition on Absinthe is beautifully insane and black in feeling, but they don't flow into each other as much as the aforementioned Delirium.

"Leng Tch'e" is also included on the "Absinthe" disk. It's 30 minutes of droning low guitar chords and screaming. Unorganized and very very loud. It's supposedly an imitation of a Chinese torture/execution method. Eye's vocals are beyond human. One of the most intense, violent recordings ever, but there's little to no musical value here. Some may love it, some may hate it.

All of these albums have a lot of depth and I have yet to totally absorb them.

I am a fan of Patton's reworked version of "Grand Guignol". True, it's not as dark, and Patton adds a bit too much, but he transforms the atmosphere into a more Fantomas-like feeling. Different but still great.

I think there IS a bit of distortion on the left channel at times, or at least a bit of static (I don't know if the actual sounds were clipped or degraded). The music is so revolutionary though that I can't in good conscience give it less than 5 stars. Everything is perfectly audible and the sound is EXCELLENT, perfect mixing. Also, 4 of these albums are no longer available at all.

People with any interest in Naked City should make this investment. Fans of Patton's stranger projects will almost surely enjoy it. Fans of noisy metal may enjoy it. Jazz listeners looking for something experimental may like this. It's a shame so much of this has gone unheard for so long.

This Is A Fantastic Box Set! Don't listen to the negative reviews!.......2006-01-06

Naked City's music isn't my cup of tea, but I will admitt that this is some crazy music. The reason I got this box set was because of Bill Frisell. This is his most insane guitar work to date. He's never done anything like this before and never will. This set should be a lesson for those who are huge fans of Bill's, that he is fully capable of playing ANYTHING!!!

Naked City is the brainchild of the enigmatic alto sax player John Zorn, whose work is very well documented since his album "The Big Gundown," which is a great album and one of my favorite of his. Naked City's music is brutal, aggressive, in-your-face, no holds bard, painful, screaming, earth-shaking, and at times it can be beautiful and cerebral. All of these albums are remastered and they sound fantastic, despite what some people may say. I'm an audiophile, along with my Dad, and I think these albums sound better than the originals.

Another reason to buy this box set is because of the obvious it's for John Zorn fans and maybe one day it's not going to be around and the albums "Radio," "Heretic," "Grand Guignol," and "Absinthe" have been long out-of-print, so not only are you buying something that's contents are rare finds, but you're getting something that will never be done again.

Sure, I don't like all this music, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what John Zorn and Naked City were doing and how innovative of a group they were. This box set is a good investment not just from a money standpoint, but also from a purely artistic one.

Naked City are the following:

Bill Frisell - guitar
John Zorn - alto sax
Joey Baron - drums
Fred Frith - bass
Wayne Horvitz - keyboards

Not perfect, but you can't please everyone anyway..........2005-09-06

First of all, for all the writers here asking where Torture Garden is, why don't you read the booklet. It explains that Torture Garden was released as a special package compliling the hardcore pieces from Naked City and Grand Guignol. Nuff said.

As another reviewer mentioned, Joey Baron is not credited at all on the Heretic notes, which I too thought was really odd.

Other than that, I have no complaints about the remasters. Sounds fine on my stereo and through my headphones. I mean, I don't have a very expensive elaborate stereo system, but to these ears, everything sounds wicked. Even if there WAS a bit of overload, I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown over it. I can see why some people would get edgy over it, after shelling out 100 bucks though.

The new Grand Guignol mix with Mike's vocals is a bit disappointing. Even though I'm a big Patton fan, I think he overdid it on this one. There's vocals where they're not needed in too many places. I don't really think it needs vocals, the piece seems to be darker and more luminous without them. Adding a few vocal bits in certain sections might have added a new dimension to the mood, but Patton just blew off too much. (Sorry Mike) Still, it is an interesting treat to hear and it makes me wonder how all these albums would've turned out if Patton would've been the lead screamer.

Anyway, I think overall, the set is great. Is it worth buying if you have all the originals? Yes, I think so. The only thing I wish Zorn would've included is more history in the booklet, and perhaps another disc of outtakes or unreleased tunes. I'm sure there's tons of stuff sitting in the vaults that Zorn is keeping secret until he feels lile releasing another boxset. Maybe we'll even get the Miles Davis treatment with his work someday, like a 7-disc set of "The Complete Grand Guignol" sessions, with one disc full of EYE doing nothing but farting and belching.

Music CD:

Music CD

Hurry The Jug - Classic Recordings of Songs, Lilting and Storytelling in the Irish Tradition ~ Vario

Pyromania ~ Def Leppard

No Surrender ~ Lars Eric Mattsson

Controversial ~ Edgar Daniel

Blind Pilots ~ The Cooper Temple Clause

Whatever ~ Bo Bud Greene

World Won't Listen

Thongs In The Key Of Life, Vol. II

Maurice ~ Various Artists

The Destructive Edit ~ T-Cisco