Something Nobody Cares About But Me!

Album: Moonchild – Songs Without Words
Artist: John Zorn
Genre: Hardcore Improv
Year: 2006
Label: Tzadik

Improvised music can, in the wrong hands, go horribly, horribly wrong. Thankfully for all involved, John Zorn understands how to improv with style and skill. The Moonchild Trio was birthed out of one of the darker corners of Zorn’s mind, leading him to seek out frequent collaborators Joey Baron (drums,) Trevor Dunn (bass,) and Mike Patton (voice) to form the ultimate Hardcore Improv group. Baron is one of Zorn’s most frequent allies and a fellow Masada performer and Dunn and Patton are both of the Dada Metal band Fantômas. Under John Zorn’s direction, they are a nightmare of improvisational extremes. Musically speaking, the Moonchild Trio is a pitch black ensemble that touches on elements of Metal, Hardcore and Noise Rock. It’s a very simple arrangement, just the three performers with Zorn conducting from the wings, but the sound goes all over the place.

Like Fantômas, Patton relies on voice music outside the confines of language alternately spitting, cursing and convulsing out whatever dark abstractions pop into his head. That’s where a major difference between this work and something like Fantômas lies. With Fantômas, Patton has a set plan that he follows to the letter, but here, he’s allowed to run wild, only reigned in by Zorn. Dunn’s high tuned bass playing may be mistaken for a guitar, but it takes us on some low end rides that could only be bass work. Also allowed more room to go wild, Dunn thrashes about with the best of them providing the weightiest aspect of the music. Joey Baron’s Jazz inflected drumming beats out the primitive rhythms that hold the music together. I think that of everyone involved, Baron is probably the most constricted, because he has to keep the beat. Despite this, though, he’s still allowed a lot of room to freak out. As previously mentioned, Zorn, instead of playing his skronking saxophone, oversees and conducts the affair, like a warlock in the style of Alistair Crowley, who the album’s inspiration is partly attributed to.

Zorn had the right idea to sit this one out, lest the project just turn into Painkiller (another of his bands) without Bill Laswell. Zorn has some black patches in his mind and this is definitely one of the darkest. The album’s themes are all related to dark magics of one kind or another and that feeling of evil comes across strongly in the music. This is not for the faint of heart and those who don’t appreciate Noise should stay well away. The closest comparison I can think of is something like Ruins, which has the same arrangement of drums, bass and vocals. But Ruins is nowhere near the suffocating darkness of this album. The best way to listen to this music is from the safety of your thaumaturgical circle, with all your strongest wards in place to keep the demons away.