Mr Bungle California CD

Mr. Bungle: Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, Bar McKinnon, Trevor Dunn, Danny Heifetz.
Additional personnel: David Phillips (pedal steel guitar); Ben Barnes, Eyvind Kang, Carla Kihlstedt (violin, viola); Sam Bass, Marika Hughes (cello); Bill Banovetz (English horn); Michael Peloquin (harmonica); Henri Duscharme (accordion); Timb Harris (trumpet); Larry Ragent (French horn); Aaron Seeman (piano); Jay Steebley (cymbalom); William Winant (bass drum, tympani, tam tam).
Recorded at Coast Recorders, Division Hi-Fi, Forking Paths Studio and Different Fur, San Francisco, California.
Personnel: Mike Patton (vocals); Eyvind Kang, Ben Barnes, Carla Kihlstedt (violin, viola); Sam D. Bass, Marika Hughes (cello); Michael Peloquin (harmonica); Henri Duscharme (accordion); Bill Banovetz (English horn, horns); Timb Harris (trumpet); Larry Ragent (French horn, horns); Aaron Seeman (piano); William Winant (bass drum, tamtam, timpani).
Audio Mixers: Rob Worthington; Adam Muñoz.
Recording information: Coast Recorders, San Francisco, CA; Coast Records, San Francisco, CA; Differ; Different Fur, Los Angeles, CA; Different Fur, San Francisco, CA; Division Hi-Fi, San Francisco, CA; Forking Paths Studio, San Francisco, CA.
Photographer: Malcolm Hillier.
Four years after Disco Volante, Mr. Bungle returns with California, which immediately distinguishes itself from its predecessors -- it's probably their most heavily orchestrated record to date and their most melodic overall, as well as the least dependent on rock styles. That's certainly not to imply that this is a tame or immediately accessible record, nor that Mr. Bungle has suddenly gone sane. There is a stronger lounge-music orientation to the group's trademark rapid-fire genre-hopping; we hear more pop, swing, rockabilly, country & western, bossa nova, Hawaiian and Middle Eastern music, jazz, Zappa-esque doo wop, arty funk, post-rock, space-age pop, spaghetti-Western music, warped circus melodies, and even dramatic pseudo-new age, plus just a smidgen of heavy metal. Sure, some of those sounds have appeared on Mr. Bungle records past, but the difference this time is the focus with which the band deploys its arsenal. California is their most concise album to date, clocking in at around 45 minutes; plus, while the song structures are far from traditional, they're edging more in that direction and that greatly helps the listener in making sense of the often random-sounding juxtapositions of musical genres (assuming, of course, that you're supposed to even try to make sense of them). As with any Mr. Bungle album, California requires at least a few listens to pull together, but its particular brand of schizophrenia isn't nearly as impenetrable as that of Disco Volante, even if it will still make you marvel at the fact that such a defiantly odd, uncommercial band recorded for Warner Bros. ~ Steve Huey
With CALIFORNIA, Mr. Bungle has largely ditched its infamous jazz/thrash/circus sound (especially evident on the group's first album) for an even more varied cinematic aesthetic that both embraces and gleefully subverts traditional pop structures. Simply put, this is probably as accessible as Bungle is bound to get, and the results are amazing in both their inventiveness and scope. (As stated in the album's tongue-in-cheek press release, CALIFORNIA shows "evidence of a rock band pretending to have roots in rock music.")
Opening with the lounge-laced "Sweet Charity," the album soon shifts to the sci-fi rockabilly/swing stylings of "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" and then to the crooning melodic pop of "Retrovertigo." On other dynamic compositions such as "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" and "Goodbye Sober Day," Bungle's quick-change genre-hopping is surprisingly seamless, with vocal gymnast Mike Patton acting as the conductor, narrator, and tour guide. "Pink Cigarette" is pure pulp-mystery music, while "The Holy Filament" wouldn't sound out of place on the BRAZIL soundtrack. AlthoughSpin (11/99, p.186) - 7 out of 10 - "...CALIFORNIA's meticulous jump-cutting-bachelor-pad, Bollywood, Tuvan village, and beyond - coheres thanks to their masterful use of space and ambience..."
Q (2/00, p.90) - 3 stars out of 5 - "Few records embody such wild-ride adventure as CALIFORNIA....the world is Mr.Bungle's oyster and he gobbles them down by the dozen."
Alternative Press (8/99, p.93) - 4 (out of 5) - "...CALIFORNIA is the luau before the typhoon....experimental, catchy, tongue-in-cheek..."
CMJ (7/12/99, p.3) - "...With Mr.Bungle's latest album, [Mike Patton] found the open-ended outlet that allows him to manipulate his phonemes to deranged perfection."