Writing and Recording
Most of the tracks were recorded live, then extensively overdubbed in the studio. "Rat Tomago" is bookended by two brief pieces of musique concrète, constructed of studio dialogue, sound effects, and assorted musical fragments. In making "Rubber Shirt", Zappa combined a track of Terry Bozzio playing drums in one musical setting with one of Patrick O'Hearn playing bass in another, and totally different, musical setting. The tracks differed in time signature and in tempo. Zappa referred to this technique as xenochrony. Nearly every song on the album features numerous overdubs.
The album was also notable for being the career break of noted producer and engineer Joe Chiccarelli. In an interview with HitQuarters, Chiccarelli said: " engineer couldn’t make the session and so he decided to take a chance on me. I’m so thankful ever since that day because he gave me a career."
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Rolling Stone | (favorable) |
| Robert Christgau | (C) |
Read more about this topic: Sheik Yerbouti
Famous quotes containing the words writing and, writing and/or recording:
“For your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Hidden away amongst Aschenbach’s writing was a passage directly asserting that nearly all the great things that exist owe their existence to a defiant despite: it is despite grief and anguish, despite poverty, loneliness, bodily weakness, vice and passion and a thousand inhibitions, that they have come into being at all. But this was more than an observation, it was an experience, it was positively the formula of his life and his fame, the key to his work.”
—Thomas Mann (18751955)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)