DIGITAL ROOTS OF MUSIC

I can define ROOTS music! That's when somebody ROOTS for the music they like the best. They usually point out why their favorite music is the "real thing", why its the only legitimate candidate for "the best music of all time" status, and why the coolest of the cool agree with them 100%. So, obviously, it follows that I could trace the roots of what I like back to the fact that I'm so "in the know", and since I ALWAYS have been, I am also endowed with impeccable musical tastes, therefore:

It is abundantly clear that
Civilization Phase III by Frank Zappa
represents the ultimate in musical ROOTS enhanced listening.

Here is a new music, by a guy who's already dead, that traces its ROOTS forward in time, rather than backward. In other words, when you hear it, it is immediately obvious to your ears what you are hearing comes from the future, just like it always has. The only backward link is Zappa himself, every other aspect of this music is new. The ways these melodies and bass lines work together is utterly baffling. The chords they outline have no precedent in any music I know of, except for Zappa music like this. Its obviously some kind of "serial" technique, but the harmonic blend between the notes is anything but atonal, in fact, quite the opposite, which is insane when you think about it. Zappa clearly demonstrates that the "unknown" doesn't necessarily have to sound weird, not in the least. The ROOTS of these strange notes are indeed EXTREMELY ORIGINAL, but the sound of how they blend sonically is the familiar harmonic blend of major and minor chords, piled on each other in different densities, similar to "jazz chords", but these don't sound like jazz harmonies at all, and the way these notes move around has nothing at all to do with jazz changes. The orchestration is lush in its thickness, at the same time, the instrument colors are in a constant flux of shifting tone combinations, with sliding piles of different instrument groupings, handing off melodies to each other and constantly moving. The rhythm is probably the most unorthodox element of all. It is a similar layering technique to the orchestration, but it results in a constantly shifting polyrhythmic pulse, not unlike phrases from a freestyle drum solo, but these drums are decorated with ultimate orchestrations of a whole new melodic approach that sounds patently Zappa. The presence of so many new innovations, layered on top of one another, and working simultaneously, is nothing short of breathtaking. For my money, this is the best sounding Zappa music ever, this is my idea of digital ROOTS music. How a dead guy can be kicking my ass like this from the future is beyond me, but my speakers don't lie.

FZ at UMRK, 1986

Little House I Used To Put A Motor In Myself With
Technical Parallels In Zappa Music ::: BWS = CPIII ?

My Favorite Frank Zappa Studio Photo
boiling it all down while there's still time

and more FZ related pages on this site