Frank Zappa - 1994 - Civilization Phaze III

F R A N K Z A P P A
- Civilization Phaze III -

Civilization Phaze III is the last album F.Z. completed before his death in 1993, and was released posthumously in April 1995 by The Zappa Family Trust on Barking Pumpkin Records.

Categorized by Zappa as an "opera-pantomime", the project began as a vocal recording experiment in 1967, which Zappa describes in the liner notes (written in 1993):
"...I decided to stuff a pair of U-87s in the piano, cover it with a heavy drape, put a sand bag on the sustain pedal, and invite anybody in the vicinity to stick their head inside and ramble incoherently about the various topics I would suggest to them..."

These ramblings (many of which were first excerpted on Zappa's 1968 album Lumpy Gravy and which later were described in the song "Evelyn A Modified Dog") were transformed into a vague plot involving pigs, ponies and other characters who live inside a piano. In 1991, additional dialog by Moon Unit Zappa, actor Michael Rapaport and others was added. The musical portions are composed and recorded exclusively using the synclavier, used first by Zappa on parts of Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984) and later on most of the Grammy-award winning Jazz from Hell (1986). On this album, however, Zappa's Synclavier has more realistic sampled instrument sounds instead of previous FM synthesis.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization,_Phaze_III