Trance-Fusion - Frank Zappa

Guitar solos album

Linked material:

Trance-Fusion

1 Chunga’s revenge

2 Bowling on Charen {Wild love}

3 Good Lobna {Let’s move to Cleveland}

4 A cold dark matter {Inca roads}

5 Butter or cannons {Let’s move to Cleveland}

6 Ask Dr. Stupid {Easy meat}

7 Scratch & sniff {City of tiny lites}

8 Trance-fusion {Twenty-one}

9 Gorgo {The torture never stops}

10 Diplodocus {King Kong}

11 Soul polka {Oh no}

12 For Giuseppe Franco {Hot-plate heaven at the Green Hotel}

13 After dinner smoker {The torture never stops}

14 Light is all that matters {Let’s move to Cleveland}

15 Finding Higgs’ boson {Hot-plate heaven at the Green Hotel}

16 Bavarian sunset {I’m the walrus}

All compositions by Frank Zappa.

Album notes by Gail Zappa

Notes from the edge

I’m not certain when this record was known to FZ as an actual project. He might have easily been collecting / collating candidates and building a reef of sorts for a few years. But once he knew his eon was closing ▶ this quickly emerged as one among the few projects that he chose to complete. Curiously, the date on the disc from Bob Ludwig is May 23 2005 and the date on the Master Tape check is 23 May 1993. Other coincidental and tangential collisions have occurred throughout every Zappa project and “Trance-fusion” is no exception - check out the Gypsy mutant vacuum cleaner swirling in castanets and the glow of the “Chunga’s Revenge” studio campfire album art ▲.

This piece had long been an FZ standard when the existence of a certain famous (sic) flamenco dancer, La Chunga, was brought to our attention.

The last time I heard this record with FZ was Thanksgiving, 1993. Among those present were one or two members of Gorky Park, our friend Beverly D’Angelo, my brother Midget (tech to FZ), Joe Travers (then drummer for FZ), Diva and Dweezil. I might have been the only one considering the gathering gloom of the end of the lease on time. I might have been. And the very something the way this album closes and opens with the soon-to-be-other Mr. Zappa on Guitar. Once, later and much beyond these last times, I remarked on this very thing. Dweezil said in a measured tone: “It’s just a guitar record”, and of course it is. But also, in the same way predicting Higgs’ Boson is just another theory. Of dark matter and the cold heart of gravity.

Surrounded by music what I miss is the running commentary on the view from the window beyond light speed by my favorite Guide to this Universe.

And speaking on Science, one little anecdote about his powers of observation, dexterity, and thought speed: Frank was amused by the sport he invented of finding as many possible ways to spell the name of a certain hotelier and lifestyler - with as many effs, pees and aitches in as many combinations thereof as possible, prompted no doubt by the majesty of the pose struck in the wall-sized framed photograph of the owner, just opposite the elevators, just off in general and specifically, the lobby of the Hotel in question, where FZ often stayed when performing in Chicago. While advancing on the elevator and in one seamless economic motion, Frank articulated his comment, well comet actually, thoroughly undetected by several others traveling through the same arc towards the same elevator. Well I do remember being boxed in at full capacity load, with the elevator doors slowly closing on the sight before us all - the glistening globulent lobbed lugey oozing in ominous silence down the image from face central. And there was just the most fleeting moment of acknowledgement between us. My hero.

Album notes by Bob Ludwig

It was a thrill for me to work on Maestro Zappa’s music again. I last worked with Frank in early 1979 cutting the original vinyl and cassette release of “Sheik Yerbouti” and this memory was with me the entire time I was mastering “Trance-fusion”. I had to work with a previously assembled and “pre-mastered” version of this recording because it was all that existed. With no possibility of remixing, it was fun to deal with all the mix problems in the mastering stage. Tom-tom fills would suddenly leap out of the mix taking over everything around them! Occasionally some really interesting music was very clouded sounding and needed a lot of work to bring out the details. I worked hard to bring out all the musicality that was inherent in the stereo masters. I hope you enjoy this collection of some of the most staggering guitar playing the world has ever heard as much as I did working on it.

1. Chunga’s revenge

[Instrumental]

2. Bowling on Charen {Wild love}

[Instrumental]

3. Good Lobna {Let’s move to Cleveland}

[Instrumental]

4. A cold dark matter {Inca roads}

[Instrumental]

5. Butter or cannons {Let’s move to Cleveland}

[Instrumental]

6. Ask Dr. Stupid {Easy meat}

[Instrumental]

7. Scratch & sniff {City of tiny lites}

[Instrumental]

8. Trance-fusion {Twenty-one}

[Instrumental]

9. Gorgo {The torture never stops}

[Instrumental]

10. Diplodocus {King Kong}

[Instrumental]

11. Soul polka {Oh no}

[Instrumental]

12. For Giuseppe Franco {Hot-plate heaven at the Green Hotel}

[Instrumental]

13. After dinner smoker {The torture never stops}

[Instrumental]

14. Light is all that matters {Let’s move to Cleveland}

[Instrumental]

15. Finding Higgs’ boson {Hot-plate heaven at the Green Hotel}

[Instrumental]

16. Bavarian sunset {I’m the walrus}

[Instrumental]

English lyrics from site Information Is Not Knowledge.