The Book of
Heads
Composed in the summer of 1978 at a time when I was spending
almost every day at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in search of inspiration, this music was originally
written for and is dedicated
to guitarist Eugene Chadbourne. Meant to GAS him, and
to stretch his already prodigious
virtuosity to even wilder extremes, many of the
extended techniques used here
(toy balloons, talking dolls, mbira keys, wet finger
whoops) were learned from him
and were an integral part of his improvisational
language at that time. Others
are standard to contemporary classical guitar notation
(body knocks, whisks, bowing,
multiple harmonics) and still others were the product
of my own sick imagination (playing
with pencils, rice, pulling strings out of the
bridge notch).
Marc Ribot tackles all of these
effects with unusual precision and an astouding
virtuosity, adding his own personal
touches to make the music even more beautiful
than I could have imagined.
-John Zorn
(From the Tzadik Web Site)
This collection of 35 etudes for solo guitar falls into Zorn's avant-garde
style. Sharp and angular, they are essentially structured noise. As the
quote above indicates, the sounds produced are bizaare and varied. This
album is excellent for anyone into Derek Bailey and Eugene Chadbourne,
but it may be a little abstract for most people.
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