John Zorn's Electric Masada — At The Mountains Of Madness

You could argue endlessly about the necessity of the seemingly everflowing stream of performances from John Zorn’s Masada Book but this one captures a band that’s on fire. The title for this double disc couldn’t be more wellchosen, because indeed: madness it is.

I’ve seen this band play live in Belgium, I have a dvd of an Italian show, there’s their edition of the Birthday Celebration series, all of them great, but none of these shows come close to the fiery energy that’s served up here. The people in Moscow and Ljubljana can consider themselves lucky that this happened in their presence. Zorn united the incredible powers of Marc Ribot, Jamie Saft, Trevor Dunn, Kenny Wollesen (sometimes replaced by Joey Baron, both are credited here), Cyro Baptista and sometimes Ikue Mori. All these incredible musicians have a reputation, but once they lay their hands on the themes provided by Zorn they collectively rise miles above that.

From the mysterious, dreamy jazzrock wanderings of Kedem or Abidan to the violent outbursts of Idalah-Abal and Hath-Arob, the band all pulls it off with the greatest of ease sounding inspired and on point all the time. Never a dull moment with this bunch of amazing musicians. The themes, all from the first book of Masada, are wellknown by now, anyone with a substantial collection of Masada releases will have multiple versions of these tracks. Sometimes indeed disputable, not so much for the quality, which is always high, but more for the quantity. These are adding so much that it’s no problem at all, even if you have the Birthday Celebration CD, on which you’d find roughly the same tracks.

With these liverecordings Electric Masada shows itself to be the rightful heir to the throne on which Naked City has been sitting since the early nineties. It’s a bit of a stretch, as I wouldn’t count the acoustic Masada as a contestant for instance. Just because the energy of that band is too different. Electric Masada shares the rawness, the energy and the jazz- and the rockaspect, but in a different context, a different phase in Zorn’s career. One thing that might suggest Zorn himself also feels that way, is the inclusion of the Naked City classic Metal Tov. If you’d like to have only a limited collection of Masada CD’s, this is one of the essentials.