Solo performer: John Zorn.

Recorded in 1973 and 1974. Includes liner notes by John Zorn.

John Zorn: alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, conceptualist--but back in 1973 he was a young man fueled by passions for classic and art films and (for most people) strange and unusual music. Inspired by the music of modern composers like M. Kagel and Edgard Varese, Pierre Boulez, the earliest works of Frank Zappa and the avant-jazz saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Albert Ayler, Zorn assembled many instruments--musical and not--and some tape recorders and had at it. The results are fractured, surreal, unsettling, wild, unpredictable and, in a strange way, fascinating. Vocals are horror-movie screams and there are samples of TV show and movie dialogue, while sounds dart about like nightmares. FIRST RECORDINGS not only gives a view of a singular talent in the raw, it's the last word in uneasy listening.