Never really understood the John Zorn circle jerk.

Naked City were entertaining for a short while as were Painkiller but I find most of his other stuff that I've heard just outright forgettable.

Give me some Soil & Pimp Sessions or Acoustic Ladyland over his tuneless drivel anyday.

Edit: Oh and Glenn 'I take the most boring part of a Sonic Youth song and drag it out over the course of a whole album' Branca can fuck off too

He's got a million different styles though.




That's not even the tip of the tip of the air above the iceberg.

Asshole's not the right word; Cage has a notoriety for being one of the more humble and nice composers in the music world. It's a shame that one composition has closed your mind to Cage though, he's made thousands of great classical compositions.

I've listened to at least 7 or 8 of his solo albums from the 80s to the present day (Not including Painkiller, Naked City or a few of his collaborations) and nothing on them did anything for me.
Collaborating with other artists, fine,
Him on his own, not really interested.

What'd you listen to? Personally, I find his Filmworks series underwhelming.

Zorn has recorded so much it's very hard to know what to make of him. Everyone says Masada and from what I've heard I agree. He plays on Peace on Earth - Prima Materia (Coltrane Tribute) with Rashied Ali which has to be the best thing he's managed to stick his nose into.

My favourite's Naked City and his classical bits (Madness, Love, and Mysticism, The Alchemist, On the Torment of Saints, the Casting of Spells and the Evocation of Spirits), but Masada's up there too. I've got to hear that record you mentioned, Rashied Ali's one of my all time favourites.

My memory is a little foggy on some of them but I know I've heard the Big Gundown, Spy vs Spy, one of his real early ones possibly Archery, Godard/Spillane and couple of filmworks albums and a couple that he released in the mid 2000s which names escape me because I didn't keep them.

I think listening to 12-15 albums of someone is a fair crack of the whip.

Sounds like you do have a good understanding of his music in that case. Idk how you feel about classical, but the three albums I've mentioned above in response to OccutHawk are really something else if you're ever in the mood to try him again.

Not sure if it counts as experimental because this is about as commercial as post rock gets, but I've always been completely unable to appreciate Explosions in the Sky.