Lumpy Gravy

I can't say I liked "Lumpy Gravy" but I certainly didn't mind it. I thought it was interesting enough to keep my attention. I was kind of looking forward to see what would happen next. I'm not really sure if Zappa intended this to be a record from the beginning. It sounds to me more like an experimental project that got recorded and released achieving some fame afterward. The beginning of Part 1, "The Way I See it, Barry" reminded me a lot of Pulp Fiction's Misirlou. I think overall Lumpy Gravy has an interesting beat to it, a lot like the 1960s surf rock movement, but then suddenly everything falls apart and Zappa includes some random dialogues of ponies and pigs (what's up with the ponies?, really) to stitch the randomness together. A lot of what I heard is what my definition of musique concrete is, a bunch of sounds and noises with effects applied to them. I'm a little intrigued to listen to it again since according to some people "it gets better the more you listen to it".

Musique Concrete

Given that musique concrete lead to a mashup culture, I can respect the form as a stepping stone along that journey. However, when compared to the melodic use of samples today and the seeming perfection with which samples are cut, tuned, and organized, I can't help but see these legendary composers as little more than Stewart from MAD TV standing behind a synthesizer jumping up and down and yelling "look what I can do!"

Varese Edgard's Poeme Electronique sounds like a list of individual samples just strung together. I do not hear any order in the madness. Concret PH does not seem to attempt any melody or pattern. Perhaps the most mature of the pieces listed is Pierre Schaeffer's Cinq Etudes de Bruis. Though this composition still seems to use the process of phase shifted clips there is a sense of structure, melody, and progression. I could certainly see this piece being used in a suspenseful movie scene.

But then again I haven't looked too deeply into this movement and I can't really say what its motivation really was. As a friend of mine likes to tell me, art is about the process not the product - if that was the intent here then this movement must have succeeded given we now live in a world with Kanye "Im'a let you finish" West.