The Mothers Of Invention
Uncle Meat
This the fifth, and final before the break up, album released by The Mothers of Invention. It was released through Bizarre/Reprise on April 21, 1969 as a double album. It was meant to be the soundtrack to a film, that was sadly never finished.
The album was recorded from October 1967 to February 1968, the exceptions being the CD bonus tracks. Made up of both live and studio material, Uncle Meat has been praised by critics for the diversity of its compositions, the virtuosity of its performances,…
The Mothers 1970
2024 stock Los Angeles – May 8, 2020 – To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Frank Zappa’s celebrated but short-lived 1970 Mothers Of Invention lineup, “Portuguese Fenders,” the first track to be released from the new collection, The Mothers 1970 is available to stream today. The newly-discovered gem is one of 70 unreleased live and studio recordings featured on The Mothers 1970, available digitally and as a 4CD box set June 26 via Zappa Records/UMe. Recorded live by Zappa on his own tape reco…
Hot Rats (LP) 50th Anniversary Limited Pink Vinyl Edition
**limited edition translucent hot pink 180-gram vinyl featuring the 1969 mix mastered from the original analog master tapes by Bernie Grundman**. Hot Rats was originally recorded in 1969 and is a predominantly instrumental album that Frank Zappa described as "a movie for your ears." The sound is largely jazz fusion based with extensive soloing, eschewing the satirical vocal performances and musique concrète of earlier Zappa releases. There are many notable musicians featured on the album, includ…
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
2017 Release. 180 grams, sourced from the original 1970 Analog Master. A fascinating collection of mostly instrumental live and studio material recorded by the original Mothers of Invention, complete with horn section, from 1967-1969, Weasels Ripped My Flesh segues unpredictably between arty experimentation and traditional song structures. Highlights of the former category include the classical avant-garde elements of "Didja Get Any Onya," which blends odd rhythmic accents and time signatures wi…
Zoot Allures
2018 Release. Zoot Allures, released in October 1976, is mostly a studio album (there are some basic live tracks, as in the title track and "Black Napkins") featuring a revolving cast of musicians who, oddly, do not correspond to the ones pictured on the album cover (for instance, Patrick O'Hearn and Eddie Jobson did not contribute). Compared to previous releases like One Size Fits All, Roxy & Elsewhere, or even Over-Nite Sensation, and to upcoming ones such as Zappa in New York, Studio Tan, or …
Cruising With Ruben & The Jets
2017 Release. 180 grams, sourced from the original analog master. "It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definit…
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
2018 release. Burnt Weeny Sandwich is the first of two albums by the Mothers of Invention that Frank Zappa released in 1970, after he had disbanded the original lineup. While Weasels Ripped My Flesh focuses on complex material and improvised stage madness, this collection of studio and live recordings summarizes the leader's various interests and influences at the time. It opens and closes on '50s pop covers, "WPLJ" and "Valarie." "Aybe Sea" is a Zappafied sea shanty, while "Igor's Boogie" is na…
We're Only In It For The Money
2017 release. We're Only in It for the Money is the third studio album by the Mothers of Invention. Released on March 4, 1968 on Verve Records. As with the band's previous two albums, We're Only in It for the Money is a concept album, and satirizes left and right-wing politics, particularly the hippie subculture, as well as the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy…
Freak Out
2017 release. One of the most ambitious debuts in rock history, Freak Out! was a seminal concept album that somehow foreshadowed both art rock and punk at the same time. Its four LP sides deconstruct rock conventions right and left, eventually pushing into territory inspired by avant-garde classical composers. Yet the album is sequenced in an accessibly logical progression; the first half is dedicated to catchy, satirical pop/rock songs that question assumptions about pop music, setting the tone…
Hot Rats
2017 release. Hot Rats was originally recorded in 1969 and is a predominantly instrumental album that Frank Zappa described as "a movie for your ears." The sound is largely jazz fusion based with extensive soloing, eschewing the satirical vocal performances and musique concrète of earlier Zappa releases. There are many notable musicians featured on the album, including drummers John Guerin, Paul Humphrey and Ron Selico, a teenage Shuggie Otis on bass, electric violinists Don "Sugarcane" Harris a…
Absolutely Free
2017 release. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s classic, groundbreaking 1967 album Absolutely Free, the Zappa Family Trust has released an expanded, vinyl-exclusive edition of the album in double-LP pressed on shiny black 180gram vinyl, mastered by Bernie Grundman, and cut directly from the original analog master tapes.While the first disc offers the original album in all its glory, the second disc in the set features twenty minutes of rare and …