NAKED CITY

BIOGRAPHY
Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" to test the limits of composition (and improvisation) in a traditional rock band lineup. Its music incorporated recognizable elements of jazz, grindcore, surf music, classical music, heavy metal, country music, punk rock and literally dozens of other music genres.
In Naked City's characteristic early style, songs were often performed at astonishingly fast tempi (drawing heavily on thrash metal and hardcore punk's emphasis on extreme speed). Many songs were quite brief, and typically switched musical genres every few measures, perhaps comparable to spinning a radio dial at random and hearing the same band performing on every station. One critic described Naked City's music as "jump-cutting micro-collages of hardcore, Country, sleazy jazz, covers of John Barry and Ornette Coleman, brief abstract tussles — a whole city crammed into two or three minute bursts." This fast-change tendency was inspired in part by Carl Stalling — a Zorn favorite — who wrote music for many Warner Brothers cartoons (featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others); music that featured frequent shifts in tempo, theme and style.
Naked City's eponymous first album was distributed by Elektra Nonesuch and featured a famous Weegee photograph of a dead gangster on its cover along with macabre illustrations by Suehiro Maruo. There disagreement between Zorn and the label over cover art on subsequent albums: Zorn wanted to use explicit S&M pictures, images from 19th century medical archives, and execution photos, most notoriously of a Leng Tch'e victim; Elektra Nonesuch refused. Zorn ended his relationship with Elektra, releasing subsequent Naked City albums on Shimmy Disc or his own Avant and Tzadik labels.
Naked City varied their stylistic approach on later releases. The cover repertoire was expanded to include various modern classical composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, Charles Ives, and Olivier Messiaen, whose works are featured on the album Grand Guignol. Leng T'che featured a single piece, over 31 minutes in length, of gruelingly slow heavy metal. Torture Garden was made up of several "BDSM miniatures," and Absinthe was all ambient textures.
Naked City found perhaps their greatest following among the fans of the many death metal, metal and grindcore bands with which they performed, such as Blind Idiot God, Napalm Death, Carcass and Live Skull. The appearance of "Osaka Bondage" -taken from the album "Torture Garden"- on the Earache sampler Grindcrusher II helped this to some extent.
Zorn discontinued Naked City after Absinthe when he felt "... the need to write music for other ensembles, in other contexts, with new ideas." A brief reunion occurred in 2003 for a few shows at European jazz festivals.

BAND MEMBERS
John Zorn: saxophone, composer, bandleader. / Bill Frisell: guitar / Wayne Horvitz: synthesizer, piano / Fred Frith: bass guitar / Joey Baron: drums / Yamatsuka Eye: voice / Mike Patton: voice (mostly for live shows)

STUDIO DISCOGRAPHY
Naked City – 1990 / Torture Garden – 1990 / Grand Guignol – 1992 / Leng Tch'e – 1992 / Heretic – 1992 / Radio – 1993 / Absinthe – 1993

NAKED CITY
1. Batman 1:58
2. The Sicilian Clan 3:27
3. You Will Be Shot 1:29
4. Latin Quarter 4:05
5. A Shot in the Dark 3:09
6. Reanimator 1:34
7. Snagglepuss 2:44
8. I Want to Live 2:08
9. Lonely Woman 2:38
10. Igneous Ejaculation 0:20
11. Blood Duster 0:13
12. Hammerhead 0:08
13. Demon Sanctuary 0:38
14. Obeah Man 0:17
15. Ujaku 0:27
16. Fuck the Facts 0:11
17. Speedball 0:37
18. Chinatown 4:23
19. Punk China Doll 3:01
20. N.Y. Flat Top Box 0:43
21. Saigon Pickup 4:46
22. The James Bond Theme 3:02
23. Den of Sins 1:08
24. Contempt 2:49
25. Graveyard Shift 3:25
26 Inside Straight 4:10

password: NS16

TORTURE GARDEN
1. Blood Is Thin 1:00
2. Demon Sanctuary 0:38
3. Thrash Jazz Assassin 0:45
4. Dead Spot 0:31
5. Bonehead 0:51
6. Speedball 0:37
7. Blood Duster 0:13
8. Pile Driver 0:33
9. Shangkuan Ling-Feng 1:14
10. Numbskull 0:29
11. Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh 0:24
12. Jazz Snot Eat Shit 0:24
13. The Prestigitator 0:43
14. No Reason to Believe 0:26
15. Hellraiser 0:39
16. Torture Garden 0:35
17. Slan 0:23
18. Hammerhead 0:08
19. The Ways of Pain 0:31
20. The Noose 0:10
21. Sack of Shit 0:43
22. Blunt Instrument 0:53
23. Osaka Bondage 1:14
24. Igneous Ejaculation 0:20
25. Shallow Grave 0:40
26. Ujaku 0:27
27. Kaoru 0:50
28. Dead Dread 0:45
29. Billy Liar 0:10
30. Victims of Torture 0:22
31. Speedfreaks 0:29
32. New Jersey Scum Swamp 0:41
33. S & M Sniper 0:14
34. Pigfucker 0:23
35. Cairo Chop Shop 0:22
36. Fuck the Facts 0:11
37. Obeah Man 0:17
38. Facelifter 0:34
39. N.Y. Flat Top Box 0:43
40. Whiplash 0:19
41. The Blade 0:36
42. Gob of Spit 0:18

password: NS17

GRAND GUIGNOL
1. Grand Guignol 17:40
2. La Cathédrale Engloutie 6:24
3. Three Preludes Op. 74 (Douloureux, Déchirant) 1:17
4. Three Preludes Op. 74 (Très Lent, Contemplatif) 1:42
5. Three Preludes Op. 74 (Allegro Drammatico) 0:48
6. Prophetiae Sybillarum 1:46
7. The Cage 2:00
8. Louange A L'Eternité De Jésus 7:07
9. Blood Is Thin 1:00
10. Thrash Jazz Assassin 0:45
11. Dead Spot 0:31
12. Bonehead 0:51
13. Piledriver 0:33
14. Shangkuan Ling-Feng 1:14
15. Numbskull 0:29
16. Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh 0:24
17. Jazz Snob Eat Shit 0:24
18. The Prestidigitator 0:43
19. No Reason To Believe 0:26
20. Hellraiser 0:39
21. Torture Garden 0:35
22. Slan 0:23
23. The Ways Of Pain 0:31
24. The Noose 0:10
25. Sack Of Shit 0:43
26. Blunt Instrument 0:53
27. Osaka Bondage 1:14
28. Shallow Grave 0:40
29. Kaoru 0:50
30. Dead Dread 0:45
31. Billy Liar 0:10
32. Victims Of Torture 0:20
33. Speedfreaks 0:48
34. New Jersey Scum Swamp 0:41
35. S-M Sniper 0:14
36. Pigfucker 0:23
37. Cairo Chop Shop 0:22
38. Facelifter 0:54
39. Whiplash 0:19
40. The Blade 0:35
41. Gob Of Spit 0:18

password: NS18

LENG TCH'E
1. Leng Tch'e 31:39

password: NS19

HERETIC:

JEUX DES DAMES CRUELLES
1. Main Titles 1:26
2. Sex Games 2:21
3. The Brood 2:48
4. Sweat, Sperm + Blood 2:03
5. Vliet 0:49
6. Heretic 1 2:32
7. Submission 4:22
8. Heretic 2 1:44
9. Catacombs 2:47
10. Heretic 3 2:41
11. My Master, My Slave 2:24
12. Saint Jude 2:12
13. The Conqueror Worm 2:32
14. Dominatrix 2B 2:16
15. Back Through The Looking Glass 2:39
16. Here Come The 7,000 Frogs 1:59
17. Slaughterhouse/Chase Sequence 2:17
18. Castle Keep 1:48
19. Mantra Of Resurrected Shit 1:41
20. Trypsicore 1:46
21. Fire And Ice (Club Scene) 2:37
22. Crosstalk 1:40
23. Copraphgist Rituals 0:53
24. Labyrinth 5:49

password: NS20

RADIO
1. Asylum 1:56
2. Sunset Surfer 3:23
3. Party Girl 2:33
4. The Outsider 2:28
5. Triggerfingers 3:31
6. Terkmani Teepee 3:57
7. Sex Fiend 3:31
8. Razorwire 5:28
9. The Bitter And The Sweet 4:48
10. Krazy Kat 1:51
11. The Vault 4:44
12. Metaltov 2:07
13. Poisonhead 1:10
14. Bone Orchard 3:52
15. I Die Screaming 2:29
16. Pistol Whipping 0:57
17. Skatekey 1:25
18. Shock Corridor 1:05
19. American Psycho 6:09

password: NS21

ABSINTHE
1. Val De Travers 6:13
2. Une Correspondance 5:04
3. La Fée Verte 5:10
4. Fleurs Du Mal 4:06
5. Artemisia Absinthium 4:31
6. Notre Dame De L'Oubli 4:48
7. Verlaine Part I - Un Midi Moins Dix 4:24
8. Verlaine Part II - La Bleue 6:01
9. ...Rend Fou 6:03

password: NS22