Discography ================================================================================================================ Country Label Format Catalog Year ================================================================================================================ USA Tzadik Records 2xCD, Archival Series TZ 7312-2 1997, April, 22 USA Tzadik Records CD, Archival Series TZ 7312 2010, October ================================================================================================================ Track Listing: ================================================================================================================ 1997 Edition as: Black Box: Torture Garden / Leng Tch'e CD 1: Torture Garden, 1991 CD 2: Leng Tch'e, 1992 2010 Edition as: Torture Garden - Leng Tch'e 20th Anniversary Edition ================================================================================================================ Credits: see albums ================================================================================================================ Black Box is a compilation album by John Zorn's band Naked City featuring Yamatsuka Eye on vocals. The album is a collection of the "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol that were originally released on Torture Garden in 1990 and the extended piece Leng Tch'e which was only released in Japan in 1992. This compilation was released on Tzadik Records in 1997. ================================================================================================================ Naked City's Black Box is a reissue of two out-of-print Naked City albums that originally provoked con- troversy because of their cover art. The art, as well as the reprinted CD's, are available in Naked City's "Black Box", which Zorn issued on his Tzadik label. The set contains some of Naked City's most challenging and dark material: included on one disc is the complete Torture Garden (which appeared in seperate parts on Grand Guignol and Naked City), a series of forty-two short blasts of styles that features the Boredoms' Yamatsuka Eye with Naked City. The second disc is Leng Tch'e, which features Eye with Naked City on a half hour track inspired by a form of extended Chinese torture. Torture Garden and Leng Tch'e were written at a time in the late 80's when Zorn was involved in the To- kyo S&M scene. Not only does much of the controversial cover art included inside come from Japanese S&M films, the music itself explores a pleasure/pain dichotomy. The appeal of Torture Garden comes from its eternal dislocation, the constant assault of new musical locations, the music never pausing to rest anywh- ere. Just when the band hits a pattern or a nice groove, it is broken up in a blast of nattering screams or screeching saxophone. Leng Tch'e, on the other hand, revels in its repetition, in the rise and gradual decay of distortion laden power chords. By the time Yamatsuka Eye enters, about halfway into the half-hour piece, the effect has become almost transcendant. I first listened to Leng Tch'e after a really shitty day, alone in my apartment, with a bottle of cheap wine and a book of Rimbaud poetry, at about one in the morn- ing. This is real your-girlfriend-just-broke-up-with-you music, when you want to enjoy revelling in some self pity for a while. ================================================================================================================ A double-CD reissue, Black Box couples two of Zorn's most exteme and violent creations with the contro- versial music and artwork intact. Torture Garden (1991) presents Naked City's intense and groundbreaking music combining free jazz, bebop, r&b, country, funk, rockabilly, surf, metal hardcore and grindcore - us- ually in the same song! This avant supergroup has influenced scores of bands including Mr. Bungle, Dim Sum Clip Job and the Boredoms (whose singer Yamataka Eye is a featured guest on these two albums). The rare, seldom-heard, Leng Tch'e (1992), released only in Japan, and long out-of-print, features Naked City in an agonizingly slow, brutal 32-minute assault.