Absolutely Free

by Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention

Overview

Frank Zappa's liner notes for Freak Out! name-checked an enormous breadth of musical and intellectual influences, and he seemingly attempts to cover them all on the second Mothers of Invention album, Absolutely Free. Leaping from style to style without warning, the album has a freewheeling, almost schizophrenic quality, encompassing everything from complex mutations of "Louie, Louie" to jazz improvisations and quotes from Stravinsky's Petrushka. It's made possible not only by expanded instrumentation, but also Zappa's experiments with tape manipulation and abrupt editing, culminating in an orchestrated mini-rock opera ("Brown Shoes Don't Make It") whose musical style shifts every few lines, often in accordance with the lyrical content. In general, the lyrics here are more given over to absurdity and non sequiturs, with the sense that they're often part of some private framework of satirical symbols. But elsewhere, Zappa's satire also grows more explicitly social, ranting against commercial consumer culture and related themes of artificiality and conformity. By turns hilarious, inscrutable, and virtuosically complex, Absolutely Free is more difficult to make sense of than Freak Out!, partly because it lacks that album's careful pacing and conceptual focus. But even if it isn't quite fully realized, Absolutely Free is still a fabulously inventive record, bursting at the seams with ideas that would coalesce into a masterpiece with Zappa's next project. ~ Steve Huey

Product Details

Release Date:	07/31/2012
Label:	Zappa Records
UPC:	0824302383520
Rank:	51728

Tracks

1. Plastic People
2. The Duke of Prunes
3. Amnesia Vivace
4. The Duke Regains His Chops
5. Call Any Vegetable
6. Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin
7. Soft-Sell Conclusion
8. Big Leg Emma
9. Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?
10. America Drinks
11. Status Back Baby
12. Uncle Bernie's Farm
13. Son of Suzy Creamcheese
14. Brown Shoes Don't Make It
15. America Drinks and Goes Home

Album Credits

Performance Credits

The Mothers of Invention   Primary Artist
Frank Zappa   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals,Conductor
John Rotella   Percussion
Roy Estrada   Drums
Don Preston   Bass,Keyboards
Jimmy Carl Black   Guitar,Vocals
Herb Cohen   Vocals (Background)
Kurt Retar   Vocals (Background)
Jim Sherwood   Woodwind
Pamela Zarubica   Vocals (Background)
Lisa Cohen   Vocals (Background)
Don Ellis   Vocals (Background)

Technical Credits

Val Valentin   Director of Engineering
Sangwook "Sunny" Nam   Mastering
Robert Hadley   Mastering
Tom Wilson   Producer
Alice Ochs   Photography
Marshal Harmon   Photography
Jerry Deiter   Photography
Melanie Starks   Production Manager
Ami Hadani   Engineer
Frank Zappa   Collage,Arranger,Composer,Lyricist,Cover Art,Liner Notes
Doug Sax   Mastering
Joe Travers   Transfers