THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

One hot the last Mothers album before Frank decided to try it alone with Hot Rats and the very successful and more instrumental series of albums, although this one is already a fine change or departure from the previous senseless insanities of double Mothers albums like 200 Motels and Uncle Meat.

An album that's often been (wrongly, IMHO) linked with Uncle Meat (probably due to the carnal artworks and titles), BWS doesn't start very well with that dumb doo-wop-like WPLJ tune, but from the very next track the album veers into a fantastic instrumental Overture/Theme BWS book-ended by the short Igor's Boogie pieces where the music alternates between modern classical and klezmer to jazz-rock. Then we get the Holiday In Berlin track where we'd gotten a theme preview with the previous Overture, where the semi-grotesque Oktoberfest-like music dominates at first, then leading into another fine jazz-rock instrumental, soon segueing in Aybe Sea (ABC), which is another good instrumental filled with Underwood's piano.

The flipside is mainly occupied by the lengthy Little House I Used To Live In, lasting almost 19-mins, which opens with a piano-dominated intro (Underwood again), before the piece- proper jumps into a wild instrumental passage that features a solid violin solo, care of Sugar Cane Harris (although I'd have preferred Ponty's intervention, but this is nitpicking), but not before Frank's outstanding guitar outing and Preston finishes the job on piano. The closing Valarie is a classically-inspired track that starts pastoral and acoustic but veers rockier and chaotic The ensuing live track starts doo-wop-ish on a parody of or pastiche of Barbara-Ann

Clearly one of the early line-up Mothers' best albums with Weasels, Burnt Weeny Sandwich is better compared to Rats, Chunga and the likes and if it didn't start so catastrophically, it could compare even more favourably.