John Zorn - Gift
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CD Details
Artist: John ZornEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2001-03-27
Music Label: Tzadik
Soundtracks:
- Makahaa
- The Quiet Surf
- Samarkan
- Train To Thiensan
- Sanke Catcher
- Mao's Moon
- Cutting Stone
- La Flor Del Barrio
- Bridge To The Beyond
- Makahaa (Reprise)
Music reviews of Gift
Music Review: Pleasant, but feels underdeveloped
Rating: 4 Stars
If you fell in love with the Naked City song "Sunset Surfer" from Radio like I did, this album is for you.
An entire album of chilled out, mellow Zorn compositions with beautiful melodies and tasteful arrangements. They cover a multitude of styles other than 'surf', maintaining a fairly constant mood but branching into ethnic harmonic structure and jazzy rhythms. There's a lot of diverse instrumentation here, all sorts of percussion, train bells, hand drums, flutes, synthesizers, trumpets... and these are a supplement to what could be a typical rock line up of drums, bass and guitar.
The problem with this album and the thing that prevents it from being an ESSENTIAL purchase is the lack of building on established ideas. Unlike the aforementioned "Sunset Surfer", these songs reach no climax or resolution, in fact they progress almost none at all. Zorn was content to establish an atmospheric, perfectly balanced backdrop and let the musicians jam with it. You've got one or 2 catchy melodies per track, switching to another theme for a little, then switching back. Solos here and there (great ones). Once a track has begun, it quickly becomes predictable. It's a good chill out album.
An all around great cast of players. Mark Ribot is an expressive guitar player, and we've got the legendary Trevor Dunn on bass, albeit playing a supportive role. Naked City alumnus Joey Baron's work here is tasteful and fitting. The other musicians are fantastic as well although less known to me.
Even the decidedly different songs follow the aforementioned structure. The dark, orchestrally-augmented jazz of "Mao's Moon" with solo trumpet is a work of genious. Probably my favorite track on the album, it moves between lush, romantic feel and ominous darkness. The trumpet player does a fantastic job. "Bridge to the Beyond" is the other slightly out-of-place number, also on the darker side of things with Mike Patton showing up briefly to do some chanting in the background. The dissonant, harmonic-filled majority of the song sounds like a build-up to horror movie violence, while the contrasting piano section feels nostalgic. It's a good mix. There's also "Cutting Stone", 7 minutes of a strange, percussive stringed instrument and tribal drums. There's no melody, and I've found this one hard to absorb. Being that it's truly something I don't understand, I won't judge it.
Of the more "Sunset Surfer"-esque tunes, I find myself favoring "The Quiet Surf" for its subtle tension.
I don't really catch the vibe of the album in general as dark like many other here do, although parts of "Mao's Moon" and "Bridge to the Beyond" fit that description. The majority evokes the content, summer night atmosphere "Sunset Surfer" did.
As for the strange and questionable artwork, who really cares? If you don't like it, don't look at it. Most of it isn't flat out obscene anyway, just bondage oriented. No matter what Zorn's attachment to this sort of thing may be, I do kind of wonder why he keeps plastering it all over his releases. Since no one else has said it flat out, the cover (beneath the gift wrap) depicts a young girl on a chair, possibly tied up, holding a gun. A weird image.
The Gift is mildly recommended to fans of Zorn. To those who aren't yet fans, I recommend buying some Naked City.
Description of Gift
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