Disco volante

(Originally written in April 2019)

This is going to be one of my favorite reviews to write, because I used to HATE this album. I thought that this was the biggest piece of shit to follow up such a stellar, weird debut. But man, was I wrong about this one.

On this album, I like to think that the members of Bungle want to say, "Hey, we all know the ska and funk shit is funny, but we did that for three demos and a whole album. Allow us to unveil the man behind the curtain. Say hello to Mister Bungle". On Disco Volante as a whole, you'll hear remnants of their funk years and Raging Wrath, then just as soon, new noisy elements, then just as soon, some reverb-laden sighs or snarls of a California-esque Patton; thus, I attest that Disco Volante is the ultimate Bungle album, since it contains everything a fan could ever want or need.

There's actually some pretty great moments in here if you like the debut. Fans may expect to hear stuff like Chemical Marriage, The Secret Song, Platypus, and After School Special. If you like their demos, (not Easter Bunny), and the debut, these are weirder, less funky, but familiar outings. What's most interesting, (not that these don't impress), is the new stuff. And boy, is it crazy.

Carry Stress in the Jaw starts off as a almost quasi-Beach Boys, frantic, jazzy song, it eventually decomposes, (or evolves as some including myself might say) into some pretty avant garde thrash metal & death metal comparable to their first demo. It's actually really fucking good stuff. The bridge is a strange bass/vocal interplay between Dunn and Patton, then it again launches into metal with a harrowing shriek by Patton, though this time, the metal is much more jazzy. Then it goes back to the Beach Boys. Then back to metal. Bungle bassist, Trevor Dunn, wrote the first segment of this song, not knowing about the second half, dubbed, "The Secret Song" by fans. (Though he did prank the rest of the band by recording hilarious old man and whining vocals to protest his lack of involvement in writing the second half). The complete product, simply labeled Carry Stress in the Jaw, belies there ever being a second half at all! This Halloweeny/secret agent-style segment really reminds me of a hybrid between the debut and something you could find on their third album, California. I honestly shouldn't start saying that because pointing out relationships between this one and their other albums would be something you'd see me writing every few lines of this review.

The ones I mentioned before could be fit into certain genres, for instance, Chemical has a carnival music vibe, but also bossa nova notes and a scary timpani section. Desert Search for Techno Allah stands as one of the band's few forays into techno. Violenza Domestica is partially jazz, partially some kind of Italian soap opera, but around 3/4 through, it just decides to stray, venturing further into weirder and weirder territory, Patton delivering only a few repetitious, calm-yet-stern vocals. The avant garde, other than everywhere, is especially found in The Bends. It has something like 10 different parts within the one song, laying out a conceptual basis for what you're hearing. But it's only conceptual. Bungle may have told you the titles of these segments, but what you make of them is really what's most important about the music. This album is truly one that needs to be interpreted, not merely listened to.

Platypus is an interesting animal for this album. While the platypus is interesting and unique just like Mr Bungle, that's not exactly what I mean. I'm saying the way that they went about recreating and deconstructing this demo track from their debut really highlights the artistic and avant-garde angle they wanted to take with this album. What was once a self-titled style track has now been transformed, becoming something much more horrible... in a good way. It's still clearly cut of the same cloth as the debut, but the adjustments they made weave in more noisy, obtuse elements.

Ma Meeshka Mo Skwoz's klezmer and scat aspects are downright goofy. It had my drunk and somewhat stoned ass absolutely mesmerized so many times, it's unbelievable. I love their debut, but if someone wants to tell me that their weirdest song ever was something like Travolta, I would tell you that man is ultra-misled. The fadeout that occurs from around 5:20 until around 5:38 and its subsequent "AH! AH! AH! AH!" could strike fear in the heart of Satan himself. I was legitimately terrified. It ends with a broken gram recording of stick clicks. The ending to The Bends is equally terrifying, but in a more building crescendo type of way.

Closing off the album is Merry Go Bye Bye. We get some sort of 50s doo-wop style song at first, and then, all hell breaks loose. It's amazing. Breathtakingly, they go straight into some awesome thrash/death metal a la Easter Bunny with some noise a la this Disco-y new direction. Patton's vocals are especially furious, especially on the last part before it goes back into a more ethereal, final version of the doo-wop. The last "as above so below" he howls/shrieks (double-tracked) just before it goes back is honestly stellar. I couldn't ask for more. When they used to be together, they would lay down a few Easter Bunny tracks in the middle there, such as Raping Your Mind. I am forever thankful that YouTube exists because I would have been pissed if I never got the chance to experience 90s Bungle playing their thrash stuff. What a closer, even though the strange, admittedly secret track, Noises technically counts. But that's literally just Theo (saxophonist) on drums and percussion and presumably the rest of them playing around with some violas or whatever they could find in the studio while they laugh about how shitty it sounds. It does have some carnival music spliced in there, but it's not exactly standout material. Once they realize that they've been recording it the whole time, it really picks up and gets pretty funny, kind of like For No Reason and Incoherence from their Chiley and America demos.

In case you didn't pick up on the nature of this album, it would be beneficial for you to be drunk, have smoked a very potent joint, or have taken at least a half a gram of shrooms if you really want to dive headfirst into the craziness. If you are free of inhibitions, you'll notice many awesome new little details once you "get it" and continue to listen. It's like Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart, in that it is unhinged, alien, weird stuff which somehow works. However, I must mention that this album is very dense in a lot of ways, and I'd describe it as a grower rather than a shower. Additionally, even though I love this album and have listened to it many times, there are still some tracks I'm not so fond of, like Everyone I Went To High School With Is Dead. But don't let that discourage you, I highly recommend you stick with Disco Volante until you understand it, because it's a very great album.

All in all, Disco Volante is peak Bungle. I can understand why they never made another one like this. If you really give it a chance with an open, (or opened if you catch my drift), mind, you'll eventually understand why this album is such a masterpiece, just like their other 90s albums. There's stuff like it, but not even Darth Vegas, Primus, Ween, or Nuclear Rabbit could ever perfectly scratch that "Disco Itch". Can't recommend it enough!

Let me get one thing perfectly clear before I dive into this thing. If you were expecting a full-on metal album like the last Mr. Bungle record, you'll be sorely disappointed. Yeah, there's metal passages on here, but most of this album is something else far removed from that. Overall this is a massive hyper-experimental, genre-diverse, Zappa-esque release that calls upon both Bungle's signature wackiness and an odd tendency towards virtuoso elegance that makes this whole thing feel smooth and well-thought-out despite the multiple personality disorder this album seems to be afflicted with. It’s difficult, but rewarding to listen to, with a complexity bordering that of jazz music and stretching an even wider range of genres than those found on the debut. This album marked the beginning of Mr. Bungle's transition into a much softer, yet more complex and artsier sound.

When I mentioned Zappa, I meant it since his influence is all over this thing but taken to new heights. If you’ve heard the jazzier fare of Hot Rats or Apostrophe, chances are you know what I’m talking about. This has songs that feel very jazzy, very intricate, and have a loose form to them while stepping all over genre conventions while laughing and blowing raspberries at everybody. Though Bungle takes this wackiness farther by going into more genres than simply jazz and rock. Disco Volante is unpredictable and chaotic, with each song belonging in its own genre like electronica, jazz, metal, lounge, Arabic music, cartoon scores with Bungle’s jazzier tendencies tying everything together. Many of these songs shift styles halfway through and become something else entirely which keeps the chaos alive and well.

When diversity and sudden changes get brought up on this album, it can lead to an interesting if somewhat jarring experience. Hearing the grinding and chugging of the industrial metallic opener makes you think you’ll be in for something fierce at first only to drop you straight into cartoon-jazz-land for most of the later material. And cartoonish is how this supposedly more sophisticated album really is. “Carry Stress in the Jaw” is probably the best example of this considering it starts off with some fast-paced spastic drum beats and Patton singing smoothly before launching into a mind-bending blend of thrash guitars, electronic noises, shouted vocals, and squealing saxophones. Then suddenly introducing the second half of the song in the voice of a happy but constipated old man and everything gets smoother and more rhythmic, turning into a swinging lounge song with Patton’s interjections as the old man giving this thing some good bits to laugh at. This kind of song epitomizes Disco Volante and the tunes that make it up. It shows off the compositional chaos and strangely entrancing approach Bungle takes here at it’s most complete since there are other songs with similarly manic composition and genre combos. It’s seen throughout the album and though these songs may not stick to your memory as well due to all the chaos, they draw you in and deliver some rewarding replay value.

It’s impressive how much of this stuff works despite going in so many directions. Songs as diverse as “Desert Search for Techno Allah” and “Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz” have solid rhythms despite all the wackiness going on and it feels oddly soothing to hear these pieces when they finally do settle into a melody and give us something a little more swinging. Especially with Arabic-styled melodies on the former and wacky cartoon jazz with singing in gibberish on the latter. The madness mixes in so well yet feels like it has a finer structure behind it due to how deliberate the tempo and time shifts are and from how many electronic noises and loops can be fit into a break in the song. It’s the kind of stuff that brings intellect and insanity very close together and maintains its level of interest and chaos despite the lesser emphasis on riffing and heaviness, instead going for a greater variety of sounds. It’s kind of like a weird musical fruit salad that somehow comes out tasting great even though you dumped a bunch of weird fruits in. It shows how much of this album you can listen to and find weird little bits upon repeat listens that make it more enjoyable and more enduring.

Disco Volante is one of those albums that prizes talent and complexity over heaviness, but still ends up being a very fun album despite its greater sense of self-importance and artiness. They may have turned into experimental, jazz-infected rock, but Mr. Bungle is still crazy, still smart, and still good for the laughs if you can listen to find them. It’s a more amorphous and less catchy album, but it still does the job great and delivers an experience that’s still very jolly and spastic, with just that little dark feeling of “offness” thrown in. It takes more time and greater attention to get into than the catchier debut but coming to appreciate Disco Volante feels rewarding in of itself with how fun it all is and how diverse an experience you get. If you want a load of great songs that swap genres like crazy, yet still hold together in an entertaining dance of madness, this is a great album to look to. It’s avant-garde jazz-rock with a metallic mentality that blends wackiness with smoothness and displays some of Mike Patton’s more diverse vocals. With a choir, a scream, a grunt, and a flurry of drums and synthesizers, Disco Volante brings some sophistication and long-form to Mr. Bungle’s sound in a satisfying package. It’s difficult and not always clear, but it’s damn good.

No, I am not lying, this really is the best Death/Avant-Garde/Jazz/Sound FX album ever. I know there were a lot of other worthy contenders, but I believe this is the greatest of them all.

WARNING: This album is full of some weird shit. Really weird shit. If you have the first album, you know nothing. That is mainstream compared to this. In that one Mike Patton actually uses words when he sings. In that one a song can have the same riff in it twice, and some of the songs even have choruses!

That stuff is absent completely on this disc. When I first popped this in, I admit I was expecting something like the first album which I love. Yet, being the open-minded fellow I am, I was ready for something new also. This album made my head explode. WTF? This is so strange, so unmelodic, such a twisted, strange view of music. I have to say I was very disappointed. It lacked musical attributes that essentially make it music. All I heard really was sound effects and sound samples and instruments playing unmelodic figures, drums playing off-beat on purpose, and all this left me baffled.

I couldn't make it through the album in the first listen. I got to about track 7 and I was too sick of it. Yet, later that day, several hours later I decided that I had to finish it. For a little while it still sounded as it had before, but somewhere during the ten-minute epic, The Bends it clicked, and everything seemed to flood into my mind, everything that was absent before. This shit iis genius.

I enjoyed the rest of the album, and then knew I had to listen to it again. As I expected it was all so much better this time. The strange melodies fit in the messed up drum beats, the sound samples were clever, I was able to enjoy the strange vocals, and I loved it. Since then I have listened to this two other times in two days.

Let me run through my favorite songs of the bunch. Chemical Marriage is a jazzy, marimba sounding kind of tune, lasting only three minutes, being actually one of the more straight-forward tracks. It's also one of the only songs that I can call catchy. Carry Stress In The Jar, the next track, is my overall favorite of the whole disc. It begins with frantic saxophones who appear throughout the song. The song incorporates use of genres such as jazz, surf-rock, metal and who the hell knows what else. The vocals in this song are also a highlight, one of the best things about the disc. Desert Search for Techno Allah is one of the other songs that is more straight forward. It is, as the title says, a techno song, but it's a techno interpretation of some arab folk song, at least that's what it sounds like.

Those are my favorite songs, but you know what, the rest of the songs switch genres and themes so much that one song is not really one song but several. So, I can't really pick songs I like specifically because there are parts in each I really like. This is an album that probably would have worked as a single track.ut it still works as seperate tracks too.

So, enjoy this second release my Mr.Bungle, despite it no sounding like the first, and more importantly, give it a second try. Perhaps you have this little disc sitting on you shelf, gathering dust for 5 years, only listened to once. One of these days pop it in, you may be surprised by what you hear.

Weird...? Extremely, but nice indeed. Mr. Bungle’s second full length is a further step away from the more metal tendencies of the self titled debut, which was a much larger step away from the death metal insanity of Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. When you listen to Raging Wrath you hear (under the horrendous so called “production”) messy riffs but still extremely brutal. It’s almost hard to believe the same band would make something along the lines of Chemical Marriage 10 years later. The jazzy tune isn’t even the most out of place thing on Disco Volante. There’s everything on here from thrash metal to 50’s rockabilly to cartoon-ish compositions. This brings us to the genius of Mike Patton, probably the most ranging man in metal. He’s been in a dozen bands including Faith No More, Dillinger Escape Plan, Tomahawk, and the genius Fantomas. Now when you throw all these genres and shit under one roof supported by a backbone of metal you get the label of Avant-Garde. Some people disregard this, afraid to experiment, whereas you lose all your nekr0 points. Well if you’re open minded enough you can see the talent and diversity and maybe even some comedy behind this album. That’s what’s so great about Disco Volante, is that it retains all of the diversity but doesn’t go to the extreme of, say California would in 1999.

Everyone I Went to High School With Is Dead, starts out with sludgy off time guitar with accompanying drums that don’t keep the beat. No, that would be too easy; instead they’re used as an accent weapon to musically enhance the song. Danny Heifetz is a great drummer in that sense that he plays more than just the beat on the songs. It sounds like it would maybe be a random title/ lyrics for its pretty much ineligible ranting from Mike squealing and lots of other voices. In fact it’s a more of a view on post-high school remembrance. It’s one of the shortest songs on the album and is an odd way to open the album. Chemical Marriage is well... completely out there; it definitely lacks anything resembling rock or metal. It’s more of a strange jazz track with interesting keyboards and percussion. It’s well assembled though and is horrifyingly catchy. But before you start worrying about your l33tness, its ends with some random recording gibberish.
Listening to this album might be a test for some people, since you can’t take this kind of music entirely seriously. Instead, take it as its intended and let yourself loosen up for once.
Carry the Stress in the Jaw is obviously going to be many peoples favorite when they listen to this album because it has the most metal in it. Clinton McKinnon has lots of saxophone in this song as well allowing the listener to hear one of the most kickass moments in music. Thrash metal guitar riffs with a saxophone over it. It starts off oddly, almost introspective, and begins to gain energy but keeps falling back, adding tension. Right when Mike hits a scream and the guitar distortion comes in and you think you’re about to burst… goddamn what a saxophone solo. It keeps going and the guitar comes in. The sax drops out and you get this awesome technical riffage. It keeps going into chaos and then collapses. It gets into a weird little midsection and Patton’s scream turns it into… what? A straight time rock section? Yes, and it lasts all of 18 seconds. The jazzy sound comes back and the tension begins building again, preparing you for yet again another mindfuck. They waste no time this time and turn right into a death/thrash assault. At 4:45 it seems this awesome song is over. But it turns into a rockabilly freak-out song with a deranged old man complaining about his being left out of the “secret song.”
Desert Search for Techno Allah is another highlight, which delivers pretty much what the title suggests. It’s a mixture of Arabian effects on guitar and some of Mikes experiments, with techno like driving drums. It actually blends quite well, and everything starts going crazy at the 3 minutes mark but is filled with an atmospheric Arabian section. Violenza Domestica is pure atmosphere, in a foreign country. Mike speaks in this language while the band sets the stage along with lots of different effects, like random crashes, metal clashing, doors creaking and other things. After School Special is a strange poppy sounding song with the view of a kid talking about how great his mom is. It’s really actually pretty disturbing, considering the lyrics talking about how his father hits him and the closing “you fucking lied to me.” The very end pretty much speaks for itself…

After that the album starts to fall into a little slump. Phlegmatics starts out with grinding drums and organs and changes into Mike moaning with simple guitar and bass with the drums coming back in later. The mellow parts are nice but the song seems to go nowhere fast. The entire thing sounds like a random jamming session which maybe it was. Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz is strange and interesting, sounding more like a movie track than anything. But unlike Chemical Marriage, the experimenting doesn’t work as well here. But I have to give credit to Mike, his random gibberish makes it entertaining. The Bends consists of four parts, titled Man Overboard, The Drowning Flute, Aqua Swing, and Follow the Bubbles. It’s 10:28 of instrumental insanity. It’s hard to break down this whole thing down, but there are parts that are pointless and parts that sound really awesome mainly around the 6th minute and onwards. Backstrokin’ is another jazz tune, maybe the final continuation of The Bends considering the name. Platypus picks this up again and starts out with some actual guitar. After awhile it gets experimental again but keeps a familiar odd vibe throughout the song. Thankfully the guitar comes back in at the end.

Merry Go Bye Bye/Nothing starts out like more of a pop/ surf rock song but it’s actually a highlight. The happy go lucky attitude and lyrics bounce along until 1:20 when it becomes pure death metal. Pounding drums and crushing guitar riffs abound, along with some death metal “YOUUU!!!!” from Mike. It starts fading out with effects and then chaos with vocal and recording effects that fade as well. HOLY SHIT, death metal blasts from out of nowhere with death metal vocals/gang vocals and piercing screams. It fades out again and it seems as though the band reproduces the sound of heaven and the poppy lyrics return. Then silence. For a whole minutes and thirty seconds. All you here is quiet and messing around on drums. Yes sadly all the real music is gone and the rest of the track is the band fucking around.

What else can be said, but you’re missing out on some real great music if you can allow yourself to expand musically. If the only thing you found enjoyable on this album was the more metal parts then at least check out the self titled debut. Mr. Bungle is all but gone now and it’s a shame but you can still listen to the genius in these records.

Mr. Bungle is a collection of musical misfits featuring Mike Patton (formerly lead singer of Faith No More), Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn, Bar McKinnon, and Danny Heifetz. The list of musicians on this records reads as follows:
I QUIT: A woodblock
Trevor Dunn: Bass, vile
Uncooked meat prior to state vector collapse: P'ip'a, keyboards/organs, guitar, electronics
Clinton McKinnon: Tenor sax, clarinets, keyboards on (6), drums on (5)
Patton: Vocals, microcassette, organs on (9)&(10), ocarina on (3)
Theo: Eb reeds piped in from Ithaca

It seams that all of these instruments appear on every track, and are not always used to enhance a song's musicality. Most of the songs are extended noise collages and retain very little true structure. I love it. This band sounds like they're having so much fun. For the most part, the record sounds as if all of the members just found them selves humming the same tune, and decided to make a record out of it, occasionally adding droplets of sonic terror.

It would be impossible to pin this record down to a single style since it takes it's greatest pleasure in letting you grow mildly accustomed to one sound and then changing it. Take for instance, the very first song, Everyone I Went To High School With Is Dead, a morbid meditation on graduation as a concept of death. The whole song is a chorus of distorted voices and instruments. The bass and guitar accompany drums with distorted percussion and feedback. Thousands of cavemen accompany Patton while he shrieks like a man with a mongoose attached to his face. "My yearbook keeps me informed/My yearbook keeps me in line/It's an obituary/Gives me a concept of time." These are the only lyrics in the song that the listener can actually make out. Once one discovers the lyrics in the liner notes, they are quite serious. It is quite representative of Mr. Bungle to sing about serious topics in a way that seams to belittle them.

This is not to say there is nothing with a beat on here. Desert Search For Techno Allah drives along with pulsing disco drums and a mid-east sound courtesy of guitarist Spruance(for more on his fascination with the music of that region, check out his side project Secret Chiefs 3). Phlegmatics starts off with heavy drums that scream punk, treats them with atonal organ and guitar, and then stops abruptly to drift in it's own improvised melodicism. Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz slithers like the soundtrack to Beetlegeuse and features Mike Patton speaking his own language and playing with the screaching of a tape cassette on fast forward.

There are real songs as well. My favorite is Carry Stress in the Jaw, which features an insanely complicated head and very pretty singing. It immediately becomes accustomed to itself as mystical jazz before Patton squeals and the whole thing turns into death metal, a la Faxed Head (who probably got most of their inspiration from this song, seeing as how they are basically Mr. Bungle; but I digress). This may be the only time you will ever hear a death metal tune with a sax solo. Then the track splits like stock and becomes a rockabilly tune about an old man with a voice like Abe Simpson, who complains that he didn't get to play on the album. The tune ends with somebody playing the bongos and doing vocal contortions.

Another gem is After School Special, about a child sarcastically talking about how great his mom is. When it's revealed at the end how much he hates her ("You lied to me!") Patton really does a convincing job sounding like a petulant child who carries endless frustration. The song is so eerie that it gives even this jaded listener pause. And then it too splits; it splits into the most disturbing thing ever caught on tape: the hideous sound of a distorted infant’s voice as it laughs and giggles, and then in a chillingly evil voice asks, "Why are you touching me?"

Merry Go Bye Bye may be the best song on the record. It bounces along in a Beach Boys-like way before exploding into a viscous metal track, descending into chaos, and emerging as a transcendent voyage up to heaven. This is song is vaguely reminiscent of Mr. Bungle’s work on California; it features the most conventional song structure on the record. The fact of the matter is that even when they are trashing something, Mr. Bungle’s love of pop music shines through. Patton’s swaggering vocals and genuinely wonderful lyrics prove that he is an artist and not just another guy with a musical monkey wrench.