Moonchild: Songs Without Words

In 2006, Zorn assembled three longtime collaborators — vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn, and drummer Joey Baron — in the studio for a day of conducted improvisation. The resulting music is a blend of hardcore and noise-rock performed with unremitting intensity. Baron’s bass sound is a mix of fuzzy distortion and metallic scraping and clanging. As the album title suggests, Patton’s not singing lyrics, but the variety of mouth-noises he throws down atop Dunn and Baron’s constantly shifting, Unsane-meets-free jazz interactions is stunning and a little frightening.