Recorded in 1976, this mythic three-CD opus finally sees the light of day to the joy of Zappaphiles. It almost goes without saying that there's a wealth of silliness, grotesque humor, and freeform genius in these three hours of wacked-out tunes about muffins, prunes, geese, and the legendary Illinois Enema Bandit. Abandon all logic ye who enter here--an all-too-rare warning at a time when Zappa still rates as a lone wolf howling against conformity. --Jeff Bateman
From the Label
Almost 20 years after its intended 1977 release, this previously unissued four-LP box set (now on three CDs) is now commercially available for the first time. With its mix of live rock performances, orchestral works, musique concrete, jazz compositions, guitar improvisations, sci-fi musicals, cartoon soundtracks and enema bandits, LÄTHER is a veritable smorgasbord of Zappa delights. As Simon Prentis, Zappa's semantic scrutinizer and LÄTHER liner note writer, observes, "Were it not for the characteristically incongruous twists lurking in the background, it would be hard to credit that so much music executed in so many different styles (and with such precision and panache) could be the work of one composer."
Produced by Zappa in 1977, LÄTHER (pronounced leather) features unreleased tracks, unreleased versions of familiar tunes and alternate mixes and edits of tracks that appeared on four separate albums in 1978 and 1979 (ZAPPA IN NEW YORK, STUDIO TAN, SLEEP DIRT and ORCHESTRAL FAVORITES). In addition to LÄTHER's two hours and 40 minutes of music, the staff at Zappa's recording studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK), has unearthed four nuggets from the Zappa vault and assembled them into a 20-minute bonus at the end of the program, bringing the total listening experience to three hours.
Legal hassles with Warner Bros., Zappa's record company at the time, prevented the original release of LÄTHER. Stories vary, but according to Gail Zappa, Zappa conceived LÄTHER as a four-album box set which Warner Bros. declined to release. The label then thwarted Zappa's attempts to release it elsewhere by threatening legal action. It was then that Zappa reluctantly reformatted some of LÄTHER's material into separate albums, and delivered them to the record company in an effort to fulfill his contractual obligations. Zappa alleged that Warner Bros. refused to pay him for the material, so he declared them in breach and the lawsuits began.
Zappa took matters into his own hands in December 1977 by playing the entire work on Pasadena's KROQ radio station and instructing listeners to tape it. He said, "This is Frank Zappa as your bogus temporary disc jockey making it possible for you to run your little cassette machine and tape an album which is perhaps never going to be available to the public at large." He was right. Until now.
The unorthodox radio broadcast, plus a few reviews of LÄTHER that found their way into the press at the time, helped to solidify the album's reputation as a masterpiece and made it the stuff of legend. "Ingenuity, poise, and audacity are stamped on all the compositions like a hallmark," says Prentis in the liner notes. The breadth and depth of musical virtuosity in evidence on LÄTHER makes it not only a top request from Zappa fans, but an important missing piece in the recorded history of one of modern music's most inspired and original composers.
