Naked City - Grand Guignol [1991]

Tracks
01 Grand Guignol (17:40)
02 La Cathédrale Engloutie (Claude Debussy) (6:24)
03 Three Preludes Op. 74: Douloureux, Déchirant (Alexander Scriabin) (1:17)
04 Three Preludes Op. 74: Très Lent, Contemplatif (Alexander Scriabin) (1:42)
05 Three Preludes Op. 74: Allegro Drammatico (Alexander Scriabin) (0:48)
06 Prophetiae Sybillarum (Orlando di Lassus) (1:46)
07 The Cage (Charles Ives) (2:00)
08 Louange A L'Eternité De Jésus (Olivier Messiaen) (7:07)
09 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)

Total time: 1h 1m 35s


Line-up/Musicians
- John Zorn: alto sax, vocals
- Bill Frisell: guitar
- Wayne Horvitz: keyboards
- Fred Frith: bass
- Joey Baron: drums
- Yamatsuka Eye: vocals
- Bob Dorough: special guest vocalist

Avan 002 - disk UNION (Japan)


Liner notes
Decades before our modern tradition of Splatter films, The Grand Guignol served up torture, incest, blood lust, insanity, mutilation and death to generations of fervid spectators. But The Grand Guignol is not simply the theater of horror that shocked Paris for sixty-five years from 1897 to 1962. It is the celebration of the darker side of our existence. It has always been with us. It always will be.
Throughout history, Artists have been obsessed with humanities Taboos and Phobias: Aristotle, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Sade, Goya, Poe, Dalí, Bataille, Hitchcock, Irving Klaw, Bacon, Dan Oniroku, H.G. Lewis, Hermann Nitsch, Carcass. Our fascination with Fear, Terror and Evil, like Death itself, knows no racial, cultural or religious barriers. It resides in our collective unconscious, binding us together with ropes we try, but are ultimately unable to sever. Only through violent trauma, or the convulsive viscera of artistic vision does it rise to the surface, reminding us that it has, in truth, been there all along.

Grand Guignol is the second full-length studio album released by John Zorn's band Naked City in 1992 on the Japanese Avant label. The album followed Torture Garden which was a compilation of "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol. The album notable for the inclusion of cover versions of pieces written by classical composers, the guest vocal of Bob Dorough, and also features a selection of "hardcore miniatures" (tracks 9-41) which are intense, fast, brief compositions, complete with the wailing of Zorn's alto sax, and the sometimes tortured, sometimes hilarious screams of Yamatsuka Eye.