EVERYTHING IS HEALING NICELY [AKA: EIHN]

This album is a selection of rehearsals and outtakes from the wonderful "Yellow Shark" album. The liner notes indicate that much of the album documents Frank Zappa teaching the Ensemble Modern many of his unusual techniques and his approach to the performance of his music. And while much of it is unpolished, all of it is beautiful.

You get to hear pieces where the group is learning how to follow Zappa's hand signals (a technique he used frequently with his rock bands), and a classical group, trained in the performance of strictly composed music, learning how to vamp and solo.

I enjoy every track, but the most pleasing to me are the two that feature violinist L.Shankar, Roland's Big Event/Strat Vindaloo and /8 Objects, and a fine orchestral version of T'Mershi Duween.

The packaging is exquisite. It's sort of a plush velvety cover. And the liner notes give a good description of what was happening during the creation of each track.

Prudes should beware, that a few of the pieces, with keyboardist Hermann Kretzschmar readng from a magazine for body piecing and tattoo enthusiast, are over the top explicit.