Prog Disco Volante Formed in 1985 in the small town of Eureka, California, are perhaps best known for unleashing vocalist into the world, but the three studio albums of their original incarnation are as fascinating and bewildering as anything released over the last three decades Mr. Bungle were ostensibly part of the so-called funk metal explosion that emerged somewhere between the commercial demise of traditional heavy metal and the sullen thud of early 90s grunge. They were a mischievous lot from the start, mixing the angular riffing and quirky slap bass popularised by artists such as with all manner of bizarre instrumentation and numerous proudly avant-garde elements.
Their self-titled 1991 debut, produced by sax terrorist John Zorn, was a multi-coloured splurge of ideas that veered from crunching death metal to unhinged fairground music, covering all bases in between and marking the band out as a fiendishly inventive and subversive musical force. It went down a storm with more adventurous metal fans and art rock aficionados alike, but few were prepared for the follow-up. Discarding virtually all of the traits that had endeared them to their admirers, , was a curveball of epic proportions.
Named after a yacht featured in the James Bond film , this was a ferociously experimental trip into the outer limits of rock, jazz, soundtrack music, cartoon horror and -like chaos. Patton and his cohorts – Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn, Clinton McKinnon and – sounded hell-bent on alien.
