SLEEP DIRT

This album is Hot Rats part 3 (part 4 in my book as the Grand Wazoo should also be in that series), this is again killer jazz-rock with Bozzio, Duke, Chester Thompson and Underwood. One of my fave Zappa album and easily the best of the later 704s album, staying away from Frank scatological obsessions of these years, Sleep Dirt (by all means not an innocent title) is an almost instrumental album and is (as you'd expect with the Hot Rats) heavily jazz-rock slanted and one of his proggiest in the more purist form.

Re-Gyptian Strut can only confirm what I said above but everything here is worthy of the Hot Rats series. Indeed, Filthy Habits is probably the most Crimsonian track Zappa's written, with its dark and menacing mood. The flamboyant Flambay and the great title track are the other stand-outs. No less interesting is the awesome 13-mins+ Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution with its wild interplay and awesome instrumental passages.

Apparently this is the instrumental version of the album, and there is a version with vocals on the Läther release that was lying dormant in frank's vaults and it was finally released post-mortem in the mid-90's. Having heard both, personally I prefer having SD home (especially with the longer Ocean track version) and eventually rent the Läther CDs.