recorded April 1991
released 1991

In 1991, Zorn got together with Mick Harris (drums) and Bill Laswell (bass) to form the ultimate hardcore band, Painkiller. It's an experiment in improvised noise.

On Guts of a Virgin, their first album, the songs are fast and chaotic. Harris and Laswell play something heavy for a moment, then Zorn comes in, screeching with his saxophone. They improvise a little, pounding and squealing, until the song suddenly ends.

That's it. Sometimes the only difference between one song and another is the length.

On each track, it sounds like a song is trying to emerge. The improvised chaos is turning into real music. But it never comes together. It's always on the wrong side of the chaos/music threshhold.

In a way, it's impressive. It's so fucking shrill you want to applaud. But it's too indulgent to enjoy. It sounds like three guys being loud just for the sake of being loud.

It might have worked better if Zorn did something other than screech. If he played low notes, this album would be fun to listen to. But he's too predictable.

But the Painkiller experiment works no matter what anyone thinks of it. If you love it, that's good. If you don't, Zorn can say, "It's supposed to be shrill noise. It's supposed to be painful."

recorded August and October 1991
released 1991

The second Painkiller album is a little longer, with fewer songs. The formula is still here — heavy drums and bass with saxophone squeals on top — but this time they've added some guitar feedback and a singer to a few tracks. The pace slows down sometimes, making the whole album a little more dynamic.

Six of the songs are good. The first good one, One-Eyed Pessary, uses the formula, but for some reason it works this time. After a moment of screeching, Zorn switches to weird, low sounds.

Trailmarker is three seconds of noise. It has to be the shortest track in the entire Zorn catalogue. Every time I hear it, I laugh. Can a song be this short and still be a song?

Buried Secrets is the first great Painkiller song. It starts off with the kind of twisted guitar sound you hear on a Rage Against the Machine album. The drums come in slow . . . and then they speed up to industrial-strength pounding. The guitar riff is looped as the song fades out.

Black Chamber comes to a halt halfway through. It starts to build up, it stops, and then it starts up again. Zorn squeals a lot on this one, but he doesn't ruin it.

And then there's The Toll. The intro is slow and scary, with big drum crashes and guitar feedback. Then Justin Broderick (of the band Godflesh) starts singing. The guitars and drums slow to a crawl while he howls phrases like WE CAN'T WIN! and WE'RE ALL BALD! He switches to FALL! FALL! FALL! as Zorn uses his saxophone to scream and chirp like a bird.

recorded June 1994
released 1994 ?

This is the only good Painkiller album I've heard. In the Collected Works, it's spread out over two discs. The first disc is the original album — three tracks of screaming improvised heavy metal blended with ambient interludes. The second disc is a remix of the first — two tracks that bury the screeching under a flood of eerie ambient music.

What sets Execution Ground apart from Guts of a Virgin and Buried Secrets? The interludes of ambient hum. It sounds like Bill Laswell took one of the previous albums and spread it out, smearing the hardcore noise against a backdrop of drones and echoes. The music fades in and out, leaving you off-balance. It feels improvised and carefully composed at the same time.

Every time I hear it, I think about Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. That album isn't hardcore like this, but it has the same structure. My guess is that Laswell or Oz Fritz did the same thing Davis' longtime producer, Teo Macero, did — he took the free-jazz recordings and arranged them in the control room for maximum effect. By breaking the tracks apart, looping, and layering, he created a masterpiece of abstract jazz. Execution Ground accomplishes the same effect, but it gets to the point quicker.

The second disc is best described as ambient heavy metal. It sounds like Halloween music. On this disc, the remixing has turned the music into sound effects. But this disc feels more "free" than the original. The distant cries of Zorn's saxophone and the low rumble of the bass and drums seem to play off of each other by instinct. It's an impressive album, something I've never heard before.

recorded November 1994
released 1997

Live in Osaka sounds a lot like Execution Ground. The band flows, bouncing off of each other, creating some kind of middle ground between hardcore and ambient. It's unpredictable music, noisy but restrained.

On the first three tracks (each about 10 minutes long), Mick Harris plays steady and fast. Zorn switches from "cool jazz" sounds to sound effects to squeals. Bill Laswell hangs back, working his way into the loops of rhythm Harris is playing, or simply not playing at all.

On the last two tracks, Yamatsuka Eye joins in. First he joins the band for Bodkyithangga, which is nothing more than the first three tracks, plus screaming. Then he improvises with Zorn for the five-part bile song — Black Bile, Yellow Bile, Blue Bile, Crimson Bile, and Ivory Bile. There's no real difference between any of the five parts. It's just Zorn and Eye making a lot of hitch-pitched noise.

I never liked this album because there's so little happening. If the band found a groove of some kind, it might work. Or they could all play at once and blow out the speakers. But they don't. I suppose you could get into the flow of it. Mick Harris' drums are particularly good in this regard — he has a style of free-form drumming that keeps changing without missing the beat.

But, unlike most Zorn albums, this one doesn't reward repeated listening. The music you hear the first time is the same music you hear the tenth time.

recorded January 15, 1998
released June 1998

One day in January, 1998, John Zorn got together with Bobby Previte (drums), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), and Elliott Sharp (guitar) to make this album. It's recorded live and improvised. They cut the music into seven songs and named them after locations in Manhattan.

After listening to the album over and over, I noticed that the first three songs had the same structure. So I made the chart below.

Each of the seven bars is a song. The quiet jams are in blue. The loud, crazy stuff is in black. On the first three songs — 484 Broome, 500 West 52nd, and Eighth Between B & C — the first half (more or less) is a quiet, complex improvisation. Then the band cuts loose, usually led by Zorn's screeching saxophone. The first song has an annoying introduction, and the third has a quiet coda.

The two green songs don't fit the pattern. Both songs are based on a fast rhythm played by Bobby Previte. The other three musicians play along, creating a fast-tempo, fluid hum of sound that never gets loud or aggressive. Everyone plays their instruments like drums. The green songs are the best part of the album. I've never heard anything like them.

Dowtown Lullaby is a mediocre album. It's an experiment in improvisation that will keep your interest, but it won't blow you away. It's best heard on headphones. On a stereo, it becomes background noise in the quiet (blue) parts, but it screams from the speakers in the black parts. It's easier to notice the subtleties when the music is being pumped directly into your ears.

recorded . . . sometime in the 20th Century
released 1995

When Zorn and Yamatsuka Eye made this brain-damaged EP of static and fake Jewish hymns, they renamed themselves Rav Yechida and Rav Tzizit — also known as the Mystic Fugu Orchestra.

You're supposed to pretend that this a copy of an old, scratchy 78rpm disc of authentic klezmer music. But Zorn turned the scratches up so high, you can hardly hear anything else. Under a lot of repetitive crackling, you hear him play the harmonium while Yamatsuka Eye groans and sings.