John Zorn Hermetic Organ

Filled with wild sounds, bizarre juxtapositions, soulful melodies, and pulsating drones, this outrageous recital is one of Zorn’s very best. Inspired by Aleister Crowley’s Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli, and performed in a kind of trance state, this is music beyond thought, beyond beauty, beyond rationality. Recorded at St. John’s Cathedral in Knoxville, Tennessee during the 2022 Big Ears Festival, this is Zorn at his metaphysical zenith. Organ improvisations with Mystery at its very heart—you have never heard such sounds!

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is a place of prayer, peace, spiritual renewal, and a temple to all who love the organ—and Zorn responds in kind with a remarkably soothing and peaceful exploration of lyricism and sonic variation. Interrupted only occasionally by a few trademark Phantom of the Opera explosions, the music is meditative, devotional, and at times achingly beautiful. Inspired by the mystical worlds of William Blake and the French organ traditions of Charles Tournemire and Olivier Messiaen, the music is an extended exploration in search of spiritual healing.

John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ, Vol. 6 - For Edgar Allan Poe (2019) {Tzadik TZ 8362}
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© 2019 Tzadik | TZ 8362 | Tzadik Archival Series
Classical / Avant-Garde

In these two spectacular performances Zorn literally “pulls out all the stops” in paying tribute to one of his favorite writers, the legendary Edgar Allan Poe, whose fantastical creations continue to capture the imagination of those interested in the dark side. Calling upon the Angels in two extended improvisations inspired by the haunting and frightening imagery of one of the world’s masters of fantasy and the imagination, the music features some of the strangest sounds you have ever heard come out of the instrument. This is organ improvisation at its most outrageous and macabre. You have never heard such sounds!

John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 3 - St. Paul's Hall, Huddersfield (2015) {Tzadik TZ 8326}
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© 2015 Tzadik | TZ 8326 | Tzadik Archival Series
Classical / Avant-Garde

Zorn’s organ improvisations are transcendent, inspiring, outrageous and ecstatic experiences, offering a direct line to the workings of his rich compositional imagination. In this performance, recorded live at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2013, Zorn creates a shockingly dramatic world of bizarre sonorities, spectral experimentation, hypnotic moods and stirring melodies. From first throbbing moment to last this third volume documenting Zorn’s legendary organ recitals on majestic instruments around the world presents the power of organ music at its most surprising, extreme and sublime.

John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ, Vol 1 - St. Paul's Chapel, NYC (2012) {Tzadik TZ 7399}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 193 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 88 Mb
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© 2012 Tzadik | TZ 7399 | Tzadik Archival Series
Classical / Avant-Garde / Modern Classical / Improvisation / Organ

This is the first volume documenting Zorn's breathtaking solo organ improvisations. Although organ was Zorn's first instrument (he often credits Lon Chaney in the silent classic Phantom of the Opera as a primal influence), in 2011 Zorn surprised even his hardcore fans by initiating a new series of solo organ concerts in churches around the world. Premiering at the historic Christ Church in Philadelphia, the word on these concerts spread like wildfire and further events were set up in Belgium, France and of course in New York.

John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ vol. 4 - St. Bart's, NYC (2016) {Tzadik TZ 8340}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 179 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 92 Mb | Artwork
© 2016 Tzadik | TZ 8340 | Tzadik Archival Series
Classical / Avant-Garde / Jazz / Improvisation / Organ

Drawing upon traditions as varied as Messiaen, Xenakis, Ligeti, Bach, Tournemire, Ives, Korla Pandit and The Phantom of the Opera, Zorn’s organ improvisations are transcendent, inspiring, ecstatic experiences, offering a direct line to the workings of his rich compositional imagination. Recorded at midnight on the eve of Halloween on the largest organ in New York City, Zorn approaches this performance as ritual, creating a mysterious mood of contrasts, colors, bells, drones, counterpoint and simultaneity. This fourth volume documenting Zorn’s legendary organ recitals presents organ improvisation at its most surprising, extreme and sublime.