Photographs cannot express or expose the beauty of this beautifully designed package from the world of John Zorn. "The Song Project" is a box set of six 45 rpm colored vinyl singles, that comes with a booklet with photos as well as lyrics/introduction by one of the key figures in this project, Jesse Harris. Zorn commissioned or asked Mike Patton, Harris, and Sofia Rei, to not only sing but also write lyrics to music written and recorded by Zorn and from his vast catalog of goodies. I'm not clear if Zorn chose the songs, or if the singers went through the catalog to choose the music pieces to collaborate on, nevertheless an interesting and well-developed project.
Zorn strikes me as a community. Which sounds egotistical, but the way it works is that Zorn carefully picks his artists to work with. None of them are 'studio' musicians, many of them are composers/artists in their own right, but also are willing to collaborate with Zorn and whatever system he puts in place. Zorn is the producer/composer/arranger. Still, I feel each singer/lyricist and musician stamps their own identity to the project. Zorn's aesthetic is not to close down the world, but to open it up to new possibilities and adventures. It's impossible to pigeon-hole Zorn musically because he is all over the map, and that is very much part of his appeal/aesthetic. For one to discover him, the listener will have to really put time into it, because his landscape is huge. Which again, is part of the Zorn aesthetic.
"The Song Project" is twelve songs, which could easily be one vinyl 12" album, but there is something special about getting up and down toward the turntable to turn the record over, or go to the next 45 rpm disc. When I hear this box set, I'm hearing an album, not separate twelve songs. I played all the vinyl in order, but if one chooses to (of course) they can mix it up - but for me, it's a consistent piece from the first single to the last. There are three singers, and sometimes the other sings harmony or backup to the other. Same musicians are on all the tracks, and Zorn is set as the conductor/arranger as well as the composer of the music. The singers are responsible for the lyrics and in most cases sing their own work along with Zorn's music. Sean Lennon wrote one of the lyrics, and that is sung by Patton and Rei. There are traces of thrash/noise/rock, but the majority of the pieces are melodic and beautiful. It's pop music made by adults and a great band of musicians.
Oddly enough, this box set reminds me of my dad's (Wallace Berman) Radio Either series, which was also a box set of his verox collages. One can look at them separately as pieces of work, but in actuality, it is one work in separate pieces. For me, the singles, although separately issued in the box (with each one with a Zorn artwork cover) can be apart from the box set. It's one work of art, and I think the format of putting them out as singles in a set that's in a box is very much of an object as well as how one approaches the material on this project. Heung-Heung Chin did the design work, and the backing band is pretty much The Dreamers, who I wrote about before on this blog.
