Orchestral music from another dimension. Often fetching prices well over $100, the 1981 LP release of Archery is one of the most sought-after collector s items in the Zorn catalog. Leading the way towards Zorn's most well known and oft-performed composition Cobra, Archery is Zorn's first large scale game piece and features an incredible all-star band, including, among others: Eugene Chadbourne, Bill Laswell, George Lewis, Bob Ostertag, Kramer, Tom Cora, Wayne Horvitz and of course the composer himself on saxophone and duck calls. Available here in a newly remastered edition, complete with the original notes, inserts, session photos and over an hour of newly discovered outtakes.
More than anything else, this music brings to mind the unpredictability, the life and death tension of combat in the jungles of Vietnam. - Retired US Army Colonel in a letter to John Zorn, ca. 1981