Cartoon S&M

John Zorn (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 5, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Tzadik
• ASIN: B00004Y6PT
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,367 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Zorn's classical masterpiece, December 9, 2003

By 

SPM "scott_maykrantz" (Eugene, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cartoon S&M (Audio CD)

In 1999 and 2000, John Zorn went to the Netherlands to record some of his best chamber music with a foreign orchestra. The result is this double-disc album. It's arranged in two parts: The cartoon disc and the S&M disc. But the material on both discs is almost interchangeable --- Zorn tends to blend his influences, even when he's trying to keep them apart. (And the violence in cartoons is nearly sadomasochistic, anyway, which gives him a head start.)

The cartoon disc is inspired by one of Zorn's heroes, Carl Stalling, the guy who wrote and conducted the music for Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons. Zorn's version of Stalling's music was written for imaginary, more adult cartoons. The three songs on this disc have three different arrangements. One is a full orchestra (For Your Eyes Only). It's loud and fast. The second, Cat O'Nine Tails, is for string quartet. It's just as fast, with sharp cuts between blocks of music. The third, Carny, is for solo piano. It re-creates the tone of the first two, but without the luxury of multiple instruments. It's also the best track on the disc.

The second disc has three moody S&M pieces. They could be the soundtracks to a couple of avant-garde erotic films. In The Dead Man (indexed on the CD into thirteen blocks for some reason), the musicians explore brief melodies, sound effects, and single tones. The piece is very abstract. Music for Children follows the same theme. It begins as music and ends with violent cracks and snaps. There's a sound of splintering wood in there, too. The third piece, Memento Mori, is very challenging --- for 26 minutes, a string quartet plays one block of music after another, each stretched out and subtle, with no repeating melodies. The piece grows on you, but only if you listen intently about ten times.

Both discs have a bonus track: Two versions of Kol Nidre, a ceremonial klezmer song that John Zorn wrote to evoke Jewish religious rites. On one disc, the song is played by a clarinet quartet. On the other, it's played by a string quartet. Although Kol Nidre doesn't fit the cartoon S&M theme, the song is a perfect coda.

This isn't a good place to start if you haven't heard John Zorn's music. But if you've had a taste of his work --- or if you like any kind of avant-garde classical music --- you should hear this. There's a lot of music here, so you'll have to listen over and over to get it all. But the effort is worth it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You want avant-garde?, September 14, 2007

By 

IRate - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cartoon S&M (Audio CD)

This bizarre double disc reiterates the fact deconstructionist Zorn is most comfortable playing into his own audience. For starters it seems clear that the recordings are available on other (arguably better) discs, and for finishers I cannot help but feel reworking these compositions into this two-disc release seems pretentious at best. Everyone should embrace their inner schizophrenic Zorn, but only few die-hards actually need to embrace this much. Amongst his "studies" into these sporadic, atonal, stringed freak-outs, the challenged-out composer offers seldom few hard reasons to stay musically invested inside these post-classical alienations. The longer compositions only are slightly more involving from their extended run time- Zorn's complete annihilation of melody and rhythm for more then a few seconds pervade both cartoon and s&m. To help clear the mind disc-to-disc, he has attached one of his slower, introspective compositions in different forms, a nice gimmick, but still no reason to invest in the experience outside of being a completionist. Still, as compositionally fractured as it all is, one can never accuse Zorn of hiring insensitive players to do his bidding, playing here with a ferocity as dazzling as it is confusing.

4.0 out of 5 stars Zorn's chamber works., January 11, 2006

By 

Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cartoon S&M (Audio CD)

John Zorn's "Cartoon S&M" is a collection of eight chamber ensemble performances, broken into two distinct sections (and cleverly two CDs). All of the material had previously been released on other albums, but these are all new recordings.

The first disc consists of music overtly influenced by Carl Stalling-- "Cartoon" music so to speak. The three pieces presented in this form-- "Cat O'Nine Tails" for string quartet, "Carny" for solo piano, and "For Your Eyes Only" for 20-piece orchestra, are all similar in form-- blocks of related, unrelated or bizarrely consistent music are arranged together in a continuous sequence of consistently changing mood and texture-- from swing to neo-Baroque to frantic energy music, cartoonish bursts, sensitive passages, etc. It moves and consistently keeps moving. Of the three, "Cat O'Nine Tails" gets the best reading (by the Mondriann Quartet)-- enormously sensitive and in-tune with the intent of the piece, although solo piano workout "Carny" (handled expertly by Tomoko Mukiyama) is my favorite of the three. Admittedly, this reading is in my assessment inferior to Stephen Drury's rather brilliant reading on "Angelus Novus", but nonetheless, it is an amazing piece. As a coda, one of Zorn's most fragile and beautiful pieces, "Kol Nidre" is presented. Performed as a string quartet (again by the Mondriann quartet), they again find a lovely and sensitive atmosphere and infuse one of zorn's most mournful composition with a stunning power. It may not be superior to the reading on "The String Quartets", but it certainly is comparable.

The second disc is grouped as "S&M", but honestly, i don't hear it. Two string quartets-- "The Dead Man" and "Memento Mori" (both previously recorded for "The String Quartets") and a violin/piano/percussion trio piece ("Music for Children") are presented and are quite similar to the material on the first disc, except the moods tend to stay darker. Both string quartets are again perforemd by the Mondriann Quartet and receive fine readings-- "Memento Mori" in particular seems to benefit from this reading. While it may be one of the most challenging listens in Zorn's catalog, a slightly more open and seemingly confident performance allows it to really shine as a thing of bizarre and delicate beauty. "The Dead Man" and "Music For Children" I found, in both cases, somewhat lesser than previous issues (on "The String Quartets" and "Music For Children" respectively)-- neither are bad listens per se (although "Music for Children" is presented in a hushed, hard to hear, tone), but I feel both had superior readings previously. Like the first disc, this one closes with a presentation of "Kol Nidre", this time scored for four clarinets. Again, the unnerving beauty of the piece shines forth, though truthfully I prefer the string version, both are stunning.

There is clasical work by Zorn which I prefer to "Cartoon S/M", but it does make a good sort of summary of his work prior to 2000. Those seeking an entry into Zorn's classical work could do worse than to start here.