CIVILIZATION PHAZE III

Wow , what a fabulous looking object . I bought that second hand two months after it came out so the previous owner probably had not given a second chance , but I can see ( or hear ) why. This is among the most experimental music Zappa has ever made . Most of this stuff was recorded INSIDE a piano (vocals included) and this is downright weird. I shall not tthrow the stone at my predecessor on this CD because I got rid of it two months ago (looking for shelf space) after one last try (the eighth in in ten years). Only for Music Scientist.

Forget any pre conceptions you have about Frank Zappa-indeed about music because this is really where the true essence of what Frank was about lies. Read the libretto whilst listening and it will make the strangest of sense. This is art beyond the boundaries of art, it is perfect. It's not Rock music-its the sapces between all those tunes on past FZ albums turned into the most perfect example of what you can do with sound when you don't work by anyones rules but your own. Fantastic

If you're not familiar with the musical language of mid to late 20th century music, i.e. Webern; Boulez, Pendercki, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Varese, etc, this album will probably sound like incomprehensible rubbish to your ears. If, however, you are familiar with and like mid to late 20th century music, this album will blow you away. This is undiluted Zappa; Zappa the "brainiac" composer. Zappa the mad Scientist down in his basement/ laboratory constructing music of mind-boggling complexity, intense; beauty and "statistical density". The music is interspersed with dialog from the 'Lumpy Gravy' sessions. The conversations were recorded underneath a grand piano covered with a canopy -- the idea being that the piano strings would resonate in sympathy with the voices thus creating an unique ambiance. Zappa edits these conversations together so that people who weren't even in the same room on the same day end up conversing with each other. The conversations are worth listening to very closely, not for their meaning (which is intentionally gibberish) but for their form which reveals them to be compositions in their own right. The music, mostly performed by the Synclavier, is hauntingly beautiful. The timbres used are not dissimilar at times to Boulez's pallet or even Messiaen's. But for the most part the music reveals Zappa's life long love of the music of Anton Webern. Having said that, it is in no way derivative, it's still 100% Zappa. The highlight has to be the awesome 'N lite'; a twenty minute journey into the nether reaches of Zappa's imagination. This is an important album which, like the music of Charles Ives before it, will probably have to wait another 50 years until it's fully appreciated.

This is the last work released by Frank before he died. It's importance can't be overstated, it IS a true MASTERPIECE. It can be seen as the culmination of Zappa the Composer (which is how his real fans understand him). The different sides of Zappa's musical character are all still in here, but the over-riding flavour of the work is the Avant Garde New Music side. As The Mentalist notes below, without some sympathy towards 20th C classical music you may have a hard time liking this album; but it's more than worth the effort! The highlights are, N-Lite, Amnerika, Put a Motor In Yourself, Dio Fa, and Beat The Reaper. The last mentioned track must have been composed after he knew he was dying as it is one of the darkest compositions in his entire body of work - It's f**king scarey man!! One gets the feeling that Frank regarded this as his Master work as it was obviously years in the making; there are references to a project like CPIII in interviews back in the mid 80s (just after "meets the MOP" was released), I'm sure of it, but don't pull me up if I'm wrong. I guess only Gail Zappa would be able to verify that. The textures and colours of this work are amazing and unique; there is nothing I've heard before or since that is anything like it. Some new music buffs are just about able to cope with the works on Jazz from Hell but this appears to be beyond most of them as I haven't heard many references to it - they're probably still trying to digest it even now; more than a decade after it was realeased. But us Zappa fans can handle it - can't we guys.. guys.. where did everybody go? Seriously though this is THE BIG ONE. Just go out and buy it NOW!!! You'll thank me for it.

I'd like to say this album is worth getting for the artwork alone (it's really nice), but I just can't. I am a full-fledged Zappaphile and I just can't sit through two discs of random noise like this. Zappa really could have used a good editor from time to time. But he did fight long and hard to achieve total artistic control. One thing you can always say about Zappa's albums is they sound like they do because that's the way he wanted it. The only part I like is the almost peaceful ambient neighborhood sounds at the very end...lawnmowers, barking dogs, and gunshots.

This is Zappa's most serious work, basically his own requiem completed during his last days on earth -- the climax of the second disc being nothing less than Zappa's musical commentary on mortality (his own & everyone else's.) Which is not to say there isn't also humour, politics and everything else he was known for. Musically this is DEFINITELY NOT ROCK, so therefore not "PROG ROCK" either. Most of it is performed (programmed rather) on the Synclavier (the best Synclavier work Zappa, or anybody else, had ever done imho), with the remainder performed by the Ensemble Modern. This is Zappa the composer's imagination brought to life in sound, it's like everything he did before was leading up to an epic like this. No guitar solos, no penis jokes, just music. Even the dialogue is music (even heard Stockhausen's "choral" works?) I agree with a previous reviewer, this is a piece whose importance won't be fully recognized and appreciated for decades to come. Essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the full scope of Zappamuzik.

first off, i know i am going to go over 50 words. sorry.

as some of your earlier reviews mentioned, only those listeners to all of fz's music can truly understand what this project was about... this was his last work and he wanted it to stand out and alone from everything before. this is not GO CRY ON SOMEBODY ELSE'S SHOULDER or CAMARILLO BRILLO stuff... this is way beyond ... way beyond... as an earlier reviewer als said that he "... rec'd a previously owned copy and then got rid of it after listening to it only a couple of times in 2 years", that's okay, a lot of music is that way but let me say that this piece CIVILIZATION ACT III (CA III) will be something that will be preformed by orchestras (if there is any money left by then) in 200 years and stuff from RUBEN AND THE JETS will die a slow death (not to say that R& J is a bad album, not at all)... i would recommend that anyone listen to REAGAN AT BITBURG from C A III at full volume and be ready for the all crap in there room to start moving around when those deep base notes are hit toward the end of the piece... there is nothing else like it (unless you do the same with LATEX SOLAR BEEF from Live at the Fillmore East 1971)...

i read an interview or heard him say in an interview that most of his music was for "... people to wash dishes to..." and really, that's what it's all about isn't it? do we really every sit down and listen the the music and listen to the words? i did in 1972 with WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY and that album made me a zappaphile for life... when i first purchased JAZZ FROM HELL, i had to listen to it about 10 times before i "finally got it"... just listen to WHILE YOU WERE ART II and you will understand what i am saying... the poly rhythms that make up the melodyare, at first and subsequent listenings, hard to hear... there are many fz compositions that need many "tries" to finally understand his message, musically speaking.

for those brave souls who want to really get a handle of fz and his plethora of music, first listen to FREAK OUT then move to something like UNCLE MEAT. after that, go listen to any of YOU CANT DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE Volumes 1-6 (which are all double cds) and finish with either the YELLOW SHARK (performed live with humans) or CIVILIZATION ACT III (performed in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen by fz and his synclavier)... this trip will help you understand where he traveled musically and took us all along for the ride. one side note, i had the pleasure of meeting him at a reception in berkeley, california after the berkeley symphony (115 piece orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano) performed 4 ballets (SINSITER FOOTWEAR, BOB N DACRON, SAD JANE, and MO N HERBS VACATION) and the only thing i could think of to say to him was "wherever you want to go musically, i am willing to support you" and with that he said: "Thanks man" and then HE reached out and shook my hand. that is the essence of someone like fz... he wanted and did do his own thing and when we find someone who we really like, musically speaking again, we need to support them in their "direction" regardless if it isn't DINAH MO HUMM or BLACK NAPKINS (one of the greatest songs ever - but i am biassed of course)... for all of you who made it this far in this reveiw, thanks and remember to honor fz on December 21st every year and play your favorite cut(s)... and let us not forget one of his greatest lines "... just because the sun wants a place in the sky, no reason to assume i wouldn't give her a try"

peace and remember to register to vote

I'm afraid it took about 5 or 6 listens before I learned to love this album. It is very difficult going but if you have some 'conceptual continuity' clues beneath your belt, some knowledge of his earlier works, then persevere. This is an object of strange beauty. A fitting swansong from a true 20thC music pioneer.

There are several Frank Zappas. There's a Zappa who wrote zany rock operas, a Zappa who recorded doo-wop pastiches, a Zappa who played superb jazz-rock, a Zappa who wrote angry protest songs, a Zappa who wrote avant-garde music for orchestras, and several more. Many of Zappa's albums are easy to enjoy the first time you hear them, but CIVILIZATION PHAZE III sounds frightening. I bought it as soon as it came out, and I don't think I've played it five times since then. Nevertheless, it's a kind of masterpiece.

The compositions Zappa wrote and performed on synclavier for this album bear a remarkable resemblance to the work of Olivier Messiaen, one of the greatest 20th century composers. To the average reader they'll sound like random tinkling, but they possess an abstract beauty of their own. The question is how often you'll feel the inclination to listen to them. Messiaen had strong religious beliefs, and his 'tinkling' is meant as a celebration of life − it gets very ecstatic at times. With Zappa, religious belief is missing, and when he constructs a climactic piece ('Beat the Reaper') by combining synclavier with eerie sound effects, the result is deeply pessimistic.

Fortunately, the pessimistic nature of CIVILIZATION PHAZE III is mitigated by Zappa's absurd voice collages, which have a wonderfully comic effect - even though I'm not sure if they were intended that way. Deadpan utterances by Germans ("Telefonkarte. Qualitat und Sicherheit aus einer Hand!"), Italians and even Flemings ("Die spreekt geen normaal taal!") were stapled together, as it were, in a rhapsodic sort of way, but the prize for the craziest contributions goes to Spider Barbour, whose bizarre enunciations had been recorded as long ago as 1967.

Not for the faint-hearted, but essential to all Zappaphiles!

Wow. The best thing I can say about this album is that it should be approached with extreme caution.

I bought this not long after it came out, in 1995 or so. I had no idea what it was, and had only heard 3 or 4 Zappa albums up to that point (and only owned two; Hot Rats and Live Roxy). Those who are familiar can imagine my utter confusion and surprise upon hearing it. But in the store it looked really cool (the packaging is fantastic and quite ahead of its time), and I knew I liked a couple Zappa albums and even though it was pretty expensive I took the plunge. And what a plunge it was.

Even now, I can't really say I enjoy this. This music is as difficult as any I have ever heard. As other reviewers mention, you need some background in 20th century orchestral music to appreciate this. I have almost none. In the years since I bought this in 1995, I have listened to the entire thing probably no more than 6 times. The first 5 were a wash. Even on the most recent, I couldn't really understand what was going on, but I listened more intently this time, and tried to focus on the things other reviewers here have pointed out.

In the end, I can't deny the musical genius required to create this. I may not understand it, or be able to really enjoy it, but I'm enough of a musician and music listener to realize that this is an incredible piece of work. Certainly the best synclavier compositions ever recorded. Zappa has always equally impressed and baffled me. Much of his music I love, and the rest I have grown to appreciate. This album is so far beyond anything else he did (with the possible exception of Yellow Shark and maybe Jazz From Hell), that it's no surprise I find it hard to enjoy. But I don't find it hard to appreciate.

So you are probably asking yourself how I can give an album I don't really enjoy a 5 star rating. Basically, I'm taking a page out of Reviewer Micky's book, and acknowledging that whether I enjoy it or not, it's impossible to call it anything but a masterpiece. I will, of course, keep pulling it out every couple of years to see if it clicks for me. I still need to explore more of Zappa's vast catalog and try to discern more of the road that led to this monster. But I've spent enough years listening to Zappa, and music in general, to know that this is a transcendent musical work that will only be fully appreciated when enough people's musical IQ's (including my own) catch up with Zappa's. That may never happen, but it doesn't take anything away from the brilliance required to create such an album as this.

If you are just a casual Frank Zappa fan, be warned. This album is not like anything else in his catalog. Sure, it has voices recorded from inside of a piano, like on "Lumpy Gravy", even some voices from that recording session. And there is Synclavier like on "Jazz From Hell". So while there is a tenuous resemblance to those two albums, the music is entirely unique. There is no rock music on the album whatsoever. it is all an acoustic and electronic blend of Zappa's classical music compositional style, with a nod to many of the late master's idols, like Varese, Stravinsky and Messaien.

Despite the lack of traditional structure in every piece, there is an amazing sort of cohesiveness that makes it impossible to stop listening. In this, Zappa proves once and for all that he was one of the musical geniuses of the twentieth century.

This is the strangest album I've ever heard in my life. Now, it is true that my tastes, despite the fact that they aren't 100% mainstream, don't trend towards the extremely "out there" or avant-garde, so my observation along these lines should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that many musicians have made albums that go beyond the bounds of, um, eccentricity that are set with this album, and that somewhere somebody could name me a dozen albums more "far out" than this one without breaking a mental sweat. Just know that, within the bounds of my collection, this is the strangest album I've ever come across, and it's definitely the strangest Frank Zappa album.

And yes, that means it's stranger than Lumpy Gravy. The thing about Lumpy Gravy's weirdness is that it was so all over the place that, ironically, it became easier to categorize its approach than if it had been more centralized. If this doesn't make sense, imagine, if you will, a crazy homeless person who stands on a street corner speaking all sorts of nonsense to anybody who'll come by and listen. If the person talks about really ridiculous things, then at first the person will seem strange and interesting. If the person then changes topics completely every two minutes or so, though, the effect will subside, and soon the overall reaction will settle on, "Oh, it's just another crazy homeless person." On the other hand, let's say the person, within his insane babblings, actually manages to create something that, at least in some ways, vaguely resembles something with a coherent narrative. In this scenario, your mind would be more likely to keep some focus on all of the insane stuff coming out of the person's mouth, and the effect of the babblings would be much more pointed. Essentially, you would have before you a sensible crazy person, and this would certainly seem to me a much odder and more compelling case than somebody babbling about anything under the sun with no shape or form.

The album is essentially two albums running in parallel to each other. One is relatively straight forward: it consists of a bunch of new classical compositions, mostly programmed into the Synclavier, with Ensemble Modern contributing some performances on the second disc. The second, then, is not so straight forward. It consists of voice recordings from 1967 (the same general set of recordings from which the conversations on Lumpy Gravy were extracted) and 1991, done by people speaking into a recording device inside a piano. The voice recordings, based on cues that Zappa would give from the control room, are rearranged into a story involving people who live inside a piano, have been living inside the piano since forever, discover that there are pigs and ponies living somewhere inside the same piano, and some other various things. The "story" (and it really isn't even that) is complete nonsense (and incredibly bizarre: I really don't think that I can properly relate how strange I think it is), but it's strangely fascinating nonsense, and it's fun to have it pop up repeatedly between the classical recordings. It really drives home to me that the main thing missing from Lumpy Gravy was something resembling a tangible, continuous thread: the thread here may be the strangest idea ever, but at least it exists, and it makes me want to give this at least a little more of a chance than I did LG.

Then there's the music. I'm really not sure how especially different the music on this album is from the bulk of Yellow Shark. Sure, the bulk of it here is from Synclavier instead of from an orchestra, but it seems more or less the same kind of thing that made up YS. And yet, I think the music here works better than did the music on YS, even if I'd be hardpressed to name any tracks that especially stood out to me for any particular reason. One thing that helps here is that there is definitely a common vibe throughout, one that's kinda bleak and dark and post-apocalyptic (probably because of the use of the Synclaiver, which lends itself to a weird "futurist" feel). Mood aside, while there are certainly a few tracks that lose me very quickly, there are also a number of cases where I find myself getting sucked in (and not repelled) by the complexity of what I'm hearing. If there's a better side-by-side comparison than YS and this of weirdness that's compelling and weirdness that's repelling, I haven't heard it.

Now, I really don't think that anybody but Zappa fans would have use for this: most people would roll their eyes at the ridiculousness of the piano people plot, and likewise most people wouldn't be able to handle the complexity of the compositions. And yet, while this isn't necessary for people who aren't Zappa fans, it's probably essential for any serious Zappa fan. It's very out of print (as of writing), and any copies of it will cost you an arm and a leg, but if you're hardcore enough to have bought The Yellow Shark, you're probably hardcore enough for this.

The final album completed by Zappa in his lifetime sees him returning to Lumpy Gravy and making a piece which is simultaneously a sequel to, expansion of, and key to unlocking the mysteries of that album. With further extracts of the discussions taking place inside the piano that were interspersed through Lumpy Gravy, plus additional piano talk written later on, and musical interludes produced on the Synclavier, at least some of the mythology contained on the former album is explained, which will thrill those addicted to Zappa's "conceptual continuity", but in terms of a pleasant musical experience I'm afraid I have the same problems with this album as I do with most of Zappa's other heavily Synclavier-based pieces.

Specifically, Zappa is clearly trying to very ambitious things with the Synclavier, and the technology just hasn't caught up with him yet. Sure, you can tell what the instruments are meant to be, more or less, but what you get is still an extremely primitive and dated mimicing of said instruments rather than anything you'd ever mistake for the pieces themselves. And frankly, this results in something which sounds more like a rough draft or a guide track for people trying to reproduce this material with real instruments than something to be listened to in its own right. I'd be very interested to hear anyone attempting to reproduce pieces such as Put a Motor In Yourself with real instruments, but I can't listen to the piece as presented here because it just doesn't feel ready for prime time. (To be absolutely clear: I'm not against synthesisers or think that they aren't "real" instruments. But it's very clear to me that here Zappa is using the Synclavier synthesiser as a stand-in for other instruments - in other words, it's Zappa's compositional approach which treats the Synclavier as a substitute for other instruments as opposed to an instrument in its own right.)

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing for Zappa that he discovered the Synclavier since with it he was able to put out a lot of music which, had he waited to produce it with the instruments it was actually composed for, he might not have been able to accomplish in his lifetime. But the end result is still not an album which I can take any pleasure from listening to.

What I seem to find is that most Rock-in-Opposition music is so closely related to 20th Century Classical music. That is what this album is, for want of trying to describe it. This is the last album FZ was working on. In fact, he died before it's completion and release. But this type of music was the music he wanted to produce. He was a genius in the fact that he understood classical music and I think it was a constant frustration to him that so many people did not understand it. He had his contemporaries, his favorite composers if you will, that he followed just like composers of classical music were always "students" of the famous composers of their own times. Just because they learned the style and techniques doesn't mean they copied them. Usually, the best composers added to the styles, stretched them to other limits, and that is how music progresses and changes over time. FZ was only following in the footsteps of hundreds of excellent composers like himself.

So, there is a concept here. If you read the other reviews here or even look it up on Wikipedia, you'll find out that this is the 3rd phase of a concept FZ had. The 1st phase was "We're Only In It For the Money" and the 2nd phase was "Lumpy Gravy" (the re-edited version). The original title of this album was "Lumpy Gravy Phase Three" but was changed to "Civilization Phaze III" which gives some insight as to what this is all about. The concept is the vocal parts are performed by a civilization that lives inside of a piano called "piano people" and their discussions about the menacing outside world. Just to make things even more fun, these people discover pigs and ponies living in the piano with them. This is not a story per se as it is a study on thinking and society, the ideas and thoughts of these "piano people", and their relationship to their music. One of the funniest things on here is the discussion on the track "How the Pig's Music Works" and it's satirical explanation which makes fun of people who think they understand avant-garde music and try to interpret it. The discussion makes no sense but the people sitting around discussing it all act like they understand what it's about, just like the so-called "hipsters" that you still run in to even today.

The strange voices are created by several speakers talking through a piano. The timbre of the voices are created by the vibration of the piano strings inside the piano. The instrumentals on here are mostly created by the synclavier and performed and composed by FZ himself. In his later years, this was FZ's instrument of choice because it was so much easier and faster to perform this way than with an orchestra or band. The additional instruments are performed by the Ensemble Modern.

There are no guitar solos here. There is no chorus, verse, chorus form here. There is no melody here, at least not in the traditional sense. This is modern classical music and this is FZ's way of advancing music to another level. It is not easy to listen to, even knowing everything that I have just explained. But, it is hard not to admit that it is genius, a masterpiece. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to appreciate the music, but like so many other reviewers have said, it's hard to listen to but undeniably genius. Anyway, it is not entry level Frank Zappa by any means unless you are trying to get a classical professor to listen to FZ.

So, hopefully I have helped you make some sense out of this music. With understanding comes appreciation. I don't know if I will ever completely understand this album, so I will always have a hard time completely appreciating it, but I will always continue to try, because I love challenging music. But this is a long album and somewhat difficult to sit through, so it is a tough one for sure. Anyway, if you love FZ and are familiar with his many styles (because this is only 1 style of hundreds of his styles), then this is essential to understanding his discography. 5 stars. Now, if you choose to continue by listening to this, I wish you good luck!