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Frank Zappa - Lumpy Gravy CD (album) cover

LUMPY GRAVY

Frank Zappa

 

RIO/Avant-Prog

3.22 | 455 ratings

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Mellotron Storm
Prog Reviewer
4 stars In the liner notes there's a picture of Frank with a cartoon caption above his head asking "Is this phase 2 of : "We're Only In It For The Money ?"". Well if this is the sister album to that one it's the more experimental and avant-garde version. I think any album that brings something new to the musical universe deserves extra marks even if it might not be that enjoyable. I do enjoy this a lot by the way, i'm just sayin'. Frank basically made two side long suites that combined lots of orchestral / Chamber styled music and humerous spoken word sections that were spliced and edited in the studio. Yes we also get Rock music in here too and other styles, but we get two long collages as it were that was not previously done before. No wonder Frank pointed to this as his favourite album from those he released. FAUST would later make something similar but of a different flavour with their debut.

"Lumpy Gravy Part One" opens with some simple guy saying "The way i see it Barry, this should be a dynamite show". The music kicks in and I especially like the "Oh No" musical section from after 2 minutes to after 3 1/2 minutes and that will be reprised later before 8 minutes. Orchestral 13 1/2 minutes in to the end.

"Lumpy Gravy Part Two" opens with spoken words and bizarre sounds. Some insane laughter before 3 minutes and later that always makes me laugh. Orchestral after 4 1/2 minutes then spoken words comes in before 6 minutes. Haha this is funny. More orchestra / chamber styled music follows. A beat as it changes after 7 minutes. Spoken words after 9 minutes but it's mostly music until before 14 minutes when a spoken word segment returns. Music ends it.

A big thankyou to Man With Hat for recommending this and Tom Ozric for his thoughts as well.

Mellotron Storm | 4/5 |

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