Moving right along, we find ourselves listening, and listening, and listening, to John Zorn's "Filmworks XIV: Hiding and Seeking". I think I may have raised suspicions that by Volume XIII we were forming the view that the best of the Filmworks series was now behind us. Well, that (tentative) view has been well and truly scotched. This is an absolute cracker of a record. It needs no movie to go with it. It is a model of understated simplicity. Marc Ribot further cements his reputation as a genuine Guitar God. The mood is Iberian: from the cheeky flamenco handclaps that turn up at one point, to some stark, evocative Spanish guitar. (Remember the episode of "Thunderbirds" where Alan, having become a famous racing car driver, gets kidnapped and left stranded on a bridge which has been rigged up with a motion sensor device so sensitive that if he so much as takes one tiny step the whole thing will blow up, taking Alan with it? Well, maybe John Zorn does, too: the music here is very reminiscent of the music there.) And with the infusion of the music of the Gypsies into this kind of music, it is easy to see how Zorn might have got from Masada to here.
There is a good serving of vibraphone, which, as you know, we always like. And Zorn also uses the human voice, something that doesn't get much of a run in his work, except at the further-out end of the spectrum, viz., Diamanda Galas on "The Big Gundown" and Mike Patton on the three (with a fourth on the way, which also is going to feature Ribot; oh happy day) "Moonchild" albums. But this time the voice is floating gently down from heaven. (On further reflection, and this is from no position of knowledge whatsoever, it strikes me that another possible influence on this record may be the 1970s airbrushed soundtrack albums made by the likes of Francis Lai. I think I'm getting that from the voice, but I can't really say why.) Percussion and upright bass anchor the music, but rarely intrude.
Aside from a few brief minutes towards the end where things get just a little bit gnarly, it's hard to see how anybody could object to this music. On a blind listen Adrienne loved it.
