Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Zappa, Frank
Label: Zappa Records
Release: 2015
Runtime: 48:20
Rating: 4.5/5
Every saga, no matter how sprawling, comes to an end sooner or later. The posthumous project »Dance Me This« is the final studio album from the great Frank Zappa, featuring previously unreleased original music recorded back when this unforgettable musician and social satirist was still alive. After so many posthumous studio releases that kept coming long after his passing, it feels strange that Frank’s incredibly rich library of unreleased studio albums has finally run dry.
Frank’s widow Gail Zappa and her The Zappa Family Trust are still making sure the memory of her husband’s exploits lives on in the 21st century, which keeps his immortal musical spirit alive in grand style too, so there will surely be various live albums and compilations to come. Unlike most other artists, whose posthumous studio albums are a kind of patched-together compilation of material ‘from all possible winds’, Frank, as if he’d foreseen his premature death, recorded all these studio records, which kept coming out for twenty-two years after he passed, while he was still alive, and entrusted their later release to his family.
Zappa recorded »Dance Me This« in his Utility Muffin Research Kitchen studio shortly before his death in 1993, when his motor skills had already begun to fade, so Todd Yvega stepped in to help with the Synclavier playing, using the approved rhythmic algorithm Frank wanted. Right around then, singers from the Republic of Tuva (southern Siberia, Russia) were in the middle of an American tour, and Zappa gladly put their unusual vocal talents to work on several of the »Dance Me This« tracks. The whole thing, like most of his odd ideas, turned out great. It’s hard to believe, since this is one of his most complex and listener-challenging achievements ever, but Zappa conceived »Dance Me This« as a modern dance album, even though its musical structure, rhythmic nuances and ambient feel fit better with the label he later gave the track »Calculus« – ‘burglar music’.
Anyone who happened to think Frank had cooked up some kind of sonic parody of the modern dance bands of the early nineties on the Synclavier for his grand finale is in for a surprise, because these are instrumental compositions you couldn’t dance to even in your dreams. They’re full of broken, dissonant rhythms and grotesque sound effects, and ‘as a result’ they also contain a short but important guitar improvisation, while the backing vocals of the three guest Russians sound as if someone were playing the didgeridoo every now and then.
»Dance Me This« will go down in the annals of the most important Zappa albums for another reason too: according to his son Dweezil, it contains Frank’s very last guitar playing before his death. This extremely short solo, lasting only a few seconds, sits on the title track, which is also the opener and the closest thing on the album to what you could call a rock song.
The album gets more avant-garde and unpredictable pretty much by the minute, with the comically ambient »Pachuco Gavotte« being just a warm-up before an explosion of unusual ambient sounds. The centerpiece of the album is the suite »Wolf Harbor«, ‘carved up’ into six interlinked tracks and, in its direction, recalling the work of Frank’s great idol, the avant-garde composer Edgar Varèse, naturally with top-notch, modern technology and production. On »Goat Polo«, which is packed with recognizable rhythmic mischief, the Siberian vocal oddballs take center stage, while »Rykoniki« recalls some forgotten track from »Jazz From Hell« (1986). On »Piano«, Frank built the Synclavier on a sound simulation of a piano and played the whole thing in an extremely fast yet subtle and well-thought-out way. The excellent closer »Calculus« is seasoned with unusual rhythmic intervals, using a special algorithm with Yvega’s assistance, while the guest vocalists from Siberia deliver the triumphant finale.
»Dance Me This« is the hundredth, but certainly not the last, record released on Zappa Records. From now on the label will ‘only’ put out live albums and various compilations, which means this is the irrevocable end of the posthumous release of Frank’s still-unreleased studio records. For anyone who ever saw, in a video, the huge library of studio recordings owned by a man of countless varied talents who breathed music his whole life, the list of unreleased material seemed practically endless, and something unreleased will surely turn up, but when it comes to studio records, sadly, it really is all over.
»Dance me This« is full of extraordinary emotions, countless passions and classic Zappa sonic unpredictability, along with some wonderful ambient moments, but it’s definitely not for everyone. Its avant-garde musical content, like most of Frank’s achievements, sounded innovative, if not downright visionary, which long-time fans will of course appreciate most, while for the ‘uninitiated’ into the ‘Zappa world’ it will be a pretty ‘tough nut to crack’, since it ranks among the maestro’s most ‘out there’ experiments and is stylistically closest to the first posthumous album, »Civilization Phaze III« (1994).
Lineup
Frank Zappa – Synclavier, guitar
Todd Yvega – algorithm and Synclavier assistance
Anatolii Kuular – vocals
Kaigl-Ool Khovalyg – vocals
Kongar-Ool Ondar – vocals
Production
Frank Zappa
Tracklist
1. Dance Me This (2:01)
2. Pachuco Gavotte (3:27)
3. Wolf Harbor (8:02)
4. Wolf Harbor II (6:53)
5. Wolf Harbor III (6:09)
6. Wolf Harbor IV (3:38)
7. Wolf Harbor V (3:09)
8. Goat Polo (3:04)
9. Rykoniki (1:59)
10. Piano (7:09)
11. Calculus (2:49)
