At the Mountains of Madness: Tzadik Records catalog now streaming

I found (Melt-Banana guitarist) Agata’s Spike, which I have on CD somewhere. Nice to know I can pull it up on my phone within a few seconds (mind you, I can do that with all my mp3s since I synced them to the cloud).

just here to rep for the yuka honda albums: cibo matto leftovers and faux video game cues. nothing but good vibes. definitely appreciate hearing these again. i love her so much.

Listening to the Electric Masada band, not the double live set mentioned in the title of this thread, but the single disc live set from Zorn’s 50th birthday celebration at Tonic. I think I might have been at one of those gigs. I think at the time I didn’t really get what they were going for (kind of a 70s fusion thing) and the heavy stuff sounded too busy, but I’m enjoying Ikue Mori’s sound effects and the busy percussion more on this listen.

I love that Nonesuch Naked City record, have had a burned copy of it since I was 19 and it still
plays, miraculously.

Still hovering around the newer & softer Tzadik releases, this year's 'Full Fathom Five' is gorgeous, fr. Under Zorn's name/pen but the band is his current crew of Julian Lage / Brian Marsella / Ches Smith / Jorge Roeder.

I find it weird that so many of these bands, and even solo performers, are not credited on the front cover of these Zorn releases.

Yeah, it seems to be more of a modern classical presentation where the composer is credited and the ensemble members are just in the liner notes? But it feels weird in a jazz context where the performers are so crucial & and upfront.

Trying to think of similar examples, maybe those Quincy Jones albums where he produced/arranged/composed and didn't play?

Something's going to have to be done about artist credits, Zorn presents himself as One of the Last Honorable Men, a tzadik if you will. As Glenn M has said more than once on the Spotify thread, the responsibility for correct info is up to whoever delivers the files to the streamer — label, distributor, other?

In my experience the label submits a spreadsheet to the distributor with all the release info, then that gets 'ingested' by all the different streaming platforms.

it definitely could be cleaned up in Spotify, but I'd say this is an issue on many of the original releases as well

So where are these Naked City albums, or at least the first one? Nonesuch stuff seems to be on Spotify, I wonder if there is some other weird rights issue. The CD is out of print.

It seems relevant that none of the original albums were on Tzadik first. (Avant, Shimmy Disc, Toy's Factory, Nonesuch) Maybe he had to license his own stuff to put out the Complete Studio Recordings box.

That's a good question, is any Avant stuff available? Are those albums still in print?

Avant was Zorn's own label, pre-Tzadik, but it was owned by DIW. I think their whole catalog is out of print now.

Mary Halvorson Quartet - Paimon: The Book of Angels Volume 32

Last of this series, really strong. Two guitars, appealingly skronky sometimes but also restrained when appropriate. I love the harmonized dual leads on 'Jesodoth', very 'Iron Maiden plays Masada' (which would have been a great Book of Angels btw).

That reminds me, I wish the long series had consistent naming conventions. The Book of Angels volumes are variously called "(Title): The Book of Angels Vol XX" or "The Book of Angels: (Title), Vol XX" and in the case of Vol. 2, leaving out the title altogether.

No offense guys but I'm hoping for less nitpicking and more recommendations

Ah, well, "Redbird" is a must for any fan of later Morton Feldman, beautiful and very very slow. The other piece on the Redbird album, "Dark River," is a solo for bass drums, frustrating listening on my tiny desktop speakers but really nice at high volume if you have the speakers for it.

Will listen to that next!

Just finished Pat Metheny - Tap: The Book of Angels vol. 20. Seriously recommend this to Metheny fans and skeptics, it's mostly great and out of his usual idioms. He plays everything besides the drums (Antonio Sanchez) and you get some noisy shredding, a lot of pensive acoustic playing, some piano freakout on the last track, etc.

Yeah, I am a Metheny agnostic (at best) but that is a great record.

That's the only one in the series that I actually own, love it, some of his most inspired playing.

The giant playlist is done for now. I was able to account for 844 albums, there are 33 more that don't appear to be available so far.

I have two playlists that I'm adding to as I go, records that I like either go into 'Tzadik Records' or 'Tzadik for Coffee'. :)

xp -- wow, I thought there would be more! Could you list the missing ones here?

Here they are, if you come across any of these in spotify, let me know

Anthony Coleman : The Abysmal Richness of the Infinite Proximity of the Same
Bar Kokhba : Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10
Barbez : Bella Ciao
David Fulmer : On Night
Fred Frith / Chris Cutler : The Stone: Issue Two
Hemophiliac : Hemophiliac (Tzadik Limited Edition)
I.P.Y. : IPY
John Zorn : Filmworks I
John Zorn : IAO
John Zorn : Naked City Black Box-20th Anniversary Edition: Torture Garden/Leng Tch'e
John Zorn : Parachute Years
John Zorn : The Dreamers-The Gentle Side
John Zorn : The Hermetic Organ Volume 10 - Bozar, Brussels
John Zorn : The Song Project Vinyl Singles Edition
John Zorn/Richard Foreman/Henry Hills : Astronome: A Night At The Opera
John Zorn's The Dreamers Featuring Mike Patton : The Christmas Song/Santa's Workshop
Ken Jacobs : Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise
Ken Jacobs : New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903
Lou Reed/Laurie Anderson/John Zorn : The Stone: Issue Three
Mark Applebaum : Catfish
Medeski, Martin and Wood : The Stone: Issue Four
Meredith Monk : Solo Concert 1980
Naked City : Black Box
Naked City : The Complete Studio Recordings
Pet Bottle Ningen : Pet Bottle Ningen
Pierre Hébert/Bob Ostertag : Between Science and Garbage
Raz Mesinai : Tunnel Vision
Steve Beresford : Cue Sheets II
Terry Riley : Autodreamographical Tales
Various Artists : Great Jewish Music: Serge Gainsbourg
Zakarya : Zakarya
Zohara : Scorched Lips
Zorn/Douglas/ Patton/Laswell/ Burger/Perowsky : The Stone: Issue One

I've been pondering how to make a 2nd list of my favorites without turning that into a gigantic unwieldy beast as well

Mary Halvorson - The Maid with the Flaxen Hair: A Tribute to Johnny Smith is a duet album with Bill Frisell, and it is a gorgeous addition to my wife-friendly 'Tzadik with Coffee' playlist.

@Moodles
I don't think any of The Stone releases will show up -- they were fundraisers for the venue iirc? The Meredith Monk and Ken Jacobs releases are DVDs. The Gentle Side and the Dreamers/Patton releases were vinyl only...
I have the Parachute Years box but never checked if the standalone releases Hockey, Pool, Archery and Lacrosse (which are available) are pulled from that.

Is the Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach release available on Spotify? It's not on Tidal.

Filmworks I was originally on Nonesuch, probably the same situation as Naked City s/t.

No, wait, Filmworks 1986-1990 is available, just not called Filmworks I.

is there anything else on The Parachute Years besides those individual ones?

yes, the Burt Bacharach one is on there

didn't realize that was the same filmworks set, I guess it got repackaged with new art

Can anyone find this one with Taborn, McBride, and Tyshawn Sorey? Having trouble finding it on spotify.
https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=8341

Comparing the Parachute box with the four sets, I think that's everything.
I'm not seeing Filmworks III (1990-1995, including the Wieden & Kennedy cues) and XI (Secret Lives) on Tidal. May have to send my first "hey fix this" note to them. Otomo/Laswell/Yoshida's Episome is missing for me too.

xp yes, it's on Tidal, but another one of those mistitled ones. It's just called Book of Angels Vol. 27: Masada Book Two. This is why nitpicking is good!

Haha fair enough, thank you! I've also stumbled onto the Medeski Martin & Wood volume, which I've wanted to hear for ages.

its easy if u search them by their proper angelic names rather than by their temporal interpreters

Here's the spotify link for that one

https://spotify.link/9BJFdWFXzDb

Mary Halvorson Quartet - Paimon: The Book of Angels Volume 32

What is the detuning guitar effect being used throughout?

It sounds like a tape delay emulator, and sure enough:

https://blog.line6.com/2020/08/24/mary-halvorsons-dl4-time-warp/

How are you getting those interesting pitch-modulation effects?
I’m changing the delay time using the expression pedal. I have the pedal set to go from zero delay time to a short delay, and moving it as I play results in that pitch-shifting sound. Another thing I like to do is set the delay to a relatively short delay time, but with none of the original signal, so that when I first play a note you hear only the acoustic sound of my guitar, followed by the amplified sound a few moments later, which creates a sort of slap-back effect between the acoustic and amplified sounds. This is particularly effective when I’m recording, as I always record both the acoustic and amplified sounds.

What are your favorite models in the DL4?
The two that I use most frequently are Tape Echo and Tube Echo. I use Tape Echo to get that pitch-shifting sound. I also use Ping Pong for a faster and longer delays, and Stereo Delays to get a weird custom loop thing happening. Oh, and I really like Reverse, as well.

I had a hunch. I have a DL4, and just twiddling the knobs gets that effect. Pretty sure I saw Frisell doing the same thing. Man, DL4 still going strong after all these years!

New to me is Asmodeus: Book of Angels Volume 7, with Marc Ribot absolutely killing it with Dunn and G. Calvin Weston.

So why are all the Book of Angels sets up except Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10?

I'm guessing they just missed it or it's under some random name

It's not possible to search Tidal by label at all. I remember the label search function on Spotify being a pain to use, but I wonder what it would turn up.

That's how I found a lot of this stuff but have not seen that particular one

I'm also digging Charles Curtis and Aleck Karis's 2004 recording of Morton Feldman's Patterns In A Chromatic Field. Spotify is currently crediting it to just Morton Feldman and John Zorn, so hopefully that gets fixed at some point. Compared to other recordings I've heard, this one is relatively dry (close-mic'd) and high-energy. Just beautiful, will surely be going back to it a lot as I explore other Tzadik stuff.

I imported this disc to iTunes and the track was labeled as 'Mental pertubation" by the database.

First up is The Days Run Away by Peter Garland, a quiet haunting minimal work for solo piano, kind of like Satie if nothing ever happened, ambient and pretty.

This is a great cd and it has been sequenced masterfully. It flows great and the last two short pieces are almost like an encore.

I wonder who plays what sounds like bass clarinet on the penultimate track on the Medeski Martin & Wood record, not credited and that one's a gem.

At this point I'm starting to wonder if there are *any* outright duds among these 900 albums.

Doubtful, probably just styles you're not interested in. I've bailed out of a couple that were too heavy on free jazz skronk or super minimal long-form electroacoustic drone (like the Jim O'Rourke record).

Now playing the first New Masada Quartet studio record and it's predictably great.

that's pretty much what I'm doing as well, cutting anything that is too abrasive or too abstract and meandering, but that is turning out to be a smaller portion of these albums than I would have expected

The Days Run Away by Peter Garland

This is lovely stuff. The title track shows how far just a couple of chords can take you. Don't know why, reminds me of some ECM stuff.

Agreed! I was really into about half of this Zoh Amba record, a very young saxophonist with Joey Baron and Zorn in the group. The less screechy parts have some really entrancing mantra-like free playing, her tone kind of reminds me of Alabaster DePlume (that shaky vibrato) but much bigger. It's an especially good-sounding record too.

I've also remembered that my favorite kind of Masada tune is the one based around an endless bass vamp (like the opening track here), wish there were more of those. But 'rubato Masada' and 'insanely fast walking bassline madness' have their merits too.

xp

I'm experimenting with Qobuz (was gifted a year's subscription) and so far it has definite pluses — the sound quality is noticeably better than Tidal, and Tidal is a huge improvement over Spotify, which to me sounds like I'm listening to my neighbor listen to music through the wall. I haven't noticed anything missing from just their catalog yet; there were some Front 242 albums I couldn't find, but then I checked Tidal and they seem to be off streaming, period, which is upsetting. And yes, my label's releases are there.

How are they for podcasts?

I was just doing some comparison and alas, as with movie/TV streaming, there is no one service that seems to have everything, especially if one has diverse/eclectic tastes (like I assume most Zorn fans). I was hoping for a way to avoid subscribing to more than one music service, but as with TV that might ultimately be impossible/impractical, if not multiplying ethical concerns rather than reducing them.

I don't think Qobuz has podcasts at all. But they have some pretty great editorial content right on the top nav bar of the app. (Tidal's editorial content, which is also good, is not available in the app; you have to go to tidal.com/magazine to find it.)

I'm giving Qobuz (the name proves they don't give a shit about making money) a shot. I have a feeling I'm going to be doubling up on streaming services, but at least these nerds seem to be trying to do it a better/more equitable way, with better sound (tbd). Now I need to go through all my dozens of albums (Zorn or otherwise) downloaded in Spotify and get them over to Q*bert.