MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Frank Zappa: The Hot Rats Sessions
Groundbreaking music gets new lease of life 50 years on
FUSION FANATIC: Frank Zappa
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
FIFTY years ago, Frank Zappa declared that: “The present day composer refuses to die.” How true, and half a century on from the release of his iconic Hot Rats LP, the drum-roll intro on the album’s opening track Peaches En Regalia still makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up.
This six-disc boxed set from Zappa Records and his studio creation Utility Research Kitchen compiles every composition recorded in several days in July 1969 when the album was made and it's filled with unedited and studio mixes, outtakes, period radio adverts and nuggets from Zappa’s vaults.
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