Frank Zappa: One Size Fits All [HIP-O]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing is remastered from the 1975 stereo master tape and comes in a gatefold jacket. The album reached No. 26 on the Billboard chart, and "Inca Roads" is one of Zappa's most celebrated compositions.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered from the 1975 stereo master tape
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Zappa was very proud of this one, and with good reason. It's the last studio album by the Mothers of Invention, cut with the formidable 1974 band: George Duke on keyboards and vocals, Chester Thompson on drums, Ruth Underwood on percussion, Tom Fowler on bass and Napoleon Murphy Brock on sax and vocals.

"Inca Roads" is the centrepiece, a dizzying, shape-shifting piece built from a live-in-the-studio performance at KCET TV in Los Angeles, with a guitar solo flown in from a Helsinki concert. "Florentine Pogen" came from the same KCET session, "Can't Afford No Shoes" rocks out with James Youmans on bass, "Po-Jama People" grooves along, and "Sofa No. 1" and "Sofa No. 2" bookend the fun. Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, one of Zappa's heroes, sings on "San Ber'dino" and "Andy," and Captain Beefheart plays harmonica under the name Bloodshot Rolling Red.

Basic tracks for both "Inca Roads" and "Florentine Pogen" also turned up in his video A Token of His Extreme. The cover shows a big maroon sofa floating in space, and the back carries a sky map full of made-up stars and constellations named after inside jokes. We'd advise against using it to navigate.

Also at Kops: more Frank Zappa on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On DiscReet / Zappa Records (cat# ZR 3853), a reissue of the 1975 album.