Customer Reviews

Leng Tch'e

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John Zorn's Naked City was one of the most extraordinary bands, having covered more ground than certainly anything I've ever heard. And while they're best known for their hardcore miniatures and arrangements of material as diverse as Ornette Coleman, John Barry and Henry Mancini (all of which was featured on their debut album, Naked City), each release by the band seemed to document some new facet, "Leng Tch'e" being no exception, although in this case, the ground covered is a grinding, pulsing and fierce slab of avant-grindcore.

The album consists of one track-- a sprawling beat of a piece stretching just over half an hour consisting of an extended exposition that builds to the explosive climax and dies down in a slow fade. "Leng Tch'e" is translated as "slow slicing" or the "death by a thousand cuts", a form of Chinese torture apparently used for execution. Zorn's goal was to represent this musically, and the result is brutal.

Driven by a feedback wail from guitarist Bill Frisell, the piece begins as a slow, throbbing monstrosity, building to a boil driven by the rhythm section (particularly drummer Joey Baron, who interjects passages of fierce percussive assaults throughout). About fifteen minutes in, the piece builds to a head and Zorn on alto and Yamantaka Eye on vocals scream together, a brutal, fierce wail from both of them, pretty much nonstop for a good ten minutes or so before the tension releases, albeit just to more tension.

Is this one for everyone? Probably not. It is a bit much and can be a bit overwhelming, and certainly it is a musical representation of pretty much legendary brutality, and it achieves its goal in that regard. Some folks will love this, myself included, it's undeniably powerful music.

A quick note-- this recording is rather hard to find in its original release and is more readily available paired with "Torture Garden" on Black Box [Torture Garden/Leng Tch'e] or as part of the band's The Complete Studio Recordings.