Discography
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Country       Label                        Format                Catalog            Year
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Japan         Avant                        CD                    AVAN 004           1993, December, 10
Russia        ArsNova                      CD, Bootleg, Ltd.     VK-225             2000
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Track Listing:
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All music composed by John Zorn

1. Val de Travers 	                                         06:13
2. Une Correspondance 	                                         05:04
3. La Fée Verte 	                                         05:10 (misprinted as La Feé Verte)	
4. Fleurs du Mal 	                                         04:06
5. Artemisia Absinthium 	                                 04:30
6. Notre Dame de L'Oubli (For Olivier Messiaen)                  04:47
7. Verlaine: Part One - Un Midi Moins Dix 	                 04:23
8. Verlaine: Part Two - La Bleue 	                         06:01
9. ...Rend Fou 	                                                 06:03
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John Zorn         – Alto Sax, Vocals
Bill Frisell      – Guitar
Fred Frith        – Bass
Joey Baron        – Drums
Wayne Horvitz     – Keyboards

Recorded at Electric Lady, NYC, December 1992
Mixed at Platinum Island, NYC, January 1993

Joe Ferla         - Engineer, Mixing
Hoover Le         - Assistant Mixing
Scott Hull        - Mastering
Kazunori Sugiyama - Associate Producer
Disk Union        - Executive Producer
John Zorn         - Producer

Tomoyo T.L.       - Cover Design (Karath=Razar)
Hans Bellmer      - Photography [Cover] "Les Jeux de la Poupée"
Lisa Wells        - Typography [Photo Typesetting] (Strong Silent Type)

Published by Theatre of Musical Optics, BMI

Special thanks to Fujieda Mamoru, Giacinto Scelsi and Mick Harris
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   Bootleg edition as jewel case with full color inserts. Limited to 500 copies.
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   Absinthe is the final recording from the band Naked City. Unlike the band's other genre-mixing releases, 
the music on Absinthe is consistently in an ambient and noise style.
   The titles of many of its tracks refer to the works of Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire and other figu-
res in the fin de siècle Decadent movement, and to the drink after which the album is named.
   The album's cover and liner notes feature photographs by the German Surrealist Hans Bellmer.
   The album was also released as part of Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings on Tzadik Records in 
2005.
   From the official description on the Avant website: "Joey Baron plays bags of dry leaves, fishing reels
and buckshot. Bill Frisell solos on a microtonal guitar. Wayne Horvitz samples everything from crickets to
Giacinto Scelsi. Fred Frith does what he does best. Zorn doesn't even touch the saxophone".
   John Zorn does not play any alto saxophone on the record, but he does provide vocals on track 6. The fi-
nal piece, "...Rend Fou", is six minutes of Frisell and Frith running their guitar jacks over the inputs on
their guitars.
   The Allmusic review by Caleb Deupree states "Naked City's final album is by far its most puzzling and 
enigmatic... Nothing in Naked City's previous oeuvre prepares the listener for this collection, a complete 
reversal from the hardcore and thrash, but looking forward to Zorn's interest in minimalist pieces like Re-
dbird and Duras".
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   For Naked City's final release, Zorn eschewed the aggressive, quick cuts of their earlier work and exp-
lored an album of textures and perfumed. Inspired by turn of the century French culture, the album explores
textures and moods, approuching a style, if not a form, that is not unlike Debussy, Satie or Messiaen. The-
re is nary a beat or melody to be discerned here, just fragrantly floating clouds of sound.