FRANK ZAPPA

Blow-by-blow account of a classic.

Frank Zappa once wrote that failure is one of the things that “serious people” dread. He also observed that failure was “nothing to get upset about”.

“Unparalleled access to Zappa’s creative processes.”

While was conspicuous by its is free of that kind of cultural carbon dating. Recorded in the summer of 1969, it’s all about starting anew, an artistic statement that’s about reinvention and a steely purpose, coming off the back of Zappa’s divorce from his band The Mothers Of Invention. It also marks the break with the Verve label and the founding of his own imprint, Bizarre, and, (bizarrely?) a partnership with the Frank Sinatra-founded Reprise Records. That bracing sense of renewed commitment and vigour is front and centre in the music, which benefits enormously through his ingenious use of then relatively new expansive 16-track technology, essentially using it as a compositional tool.