As FZ once said, all his music would be instrumental, if it weren’t for the fact that there’s no market for that in ’modern’ pop culture. So vocals were a necessary requirement to get his material in the market place. But if you can grasp the human voice as just another musical instrument, the whole catalogue is open to investigation. Which is as it should.
My no.1 recommendation would be ’Uncle Meat’. While it has some vocals - mostly for comic relief - this is some of the most intricate instrumental music ever put on tape. It’s like looking at one of those fractal images, where a few recognizable patterns (in this case musical ’themes’) are being juggled around in constantly changing variations and/or instrumentations. For me it’s the ultimate expression of Zappa’s project/object narrative. ’You need a chicken to measure it’.....
