Review by CMJ-NMR:		

	 If you're on the irritable side, steer 
clear of Mr. Bungle; but if you find yourself wistful and empathetic in 
your post-Ritalin days, grab on for the 68-minute ride of Mr. Bungle's 
second effort. Disco Volante is like being trapped inside a 13-year-old 
boy's brain with the hormone knobs cranked all the way to the right: For 
a few seconds it's the smooth croon of Mike Patton (the voice of Faith 
No More and the adult brain behind this chaos), the next instant it's 
death/speedcore, the next it's video game spaceship blips and hums, then 
it's a compressed ricochet of animation sound effects - it's all in a day's 
work for pre-pubescent boys and their mysterious hero Mr. Bungle. But of 
the barrage of insane snippets on Disco Volante, those takes on animation 
instrumentation are the most intellectually ambitious and illuminating, 
stepping on impressively well-tread and tough-to-emulate ground with a lot 
of reverence and more than a little skill. "Merry Go Bye Bye" and "Ma 
Meeshka Mow Skwoz" pack some of the album's best spasms, zipping by like 
Carl Stalling's Bugs Bunny soundtrack stuck in some kind of regressive, 
repeating seizure. Again, if you're prone to nail-biting, tics or cold 
sweats, stay away, otherwise, "Carry Stress In The Jaw," "Platypus," 
"Everyone I Went To High School With Is Dead" and ''After School Special."  

CHERYL BOTCHICK
© 1978-1998 College Media, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved.


Exclusive Review from CMJ-NMR

Something this wildly twisted, but nonetheless ingeniously intriguing, 
couldn't possibly have originated from anywhere else but the maniacally 
distorted mind of Faith No More vocalist and lead psychopath Mike Patton, 
who despite being a brilliant musical talent, has also been known to pinch 
a load in the darkest corner of a club during the band's soundcheck just 
to see who smells it and discovers it first. Mr. Bungle's sophomore effort, 
Disco Volante , is a true artistic nightmare filled with frightening images 
of death, abuse, hostility, deceit and evil, all of which are heaped up with 
more than enough dark humor. Combining a violent mish-mash of live 
instruments and an electronic sound, Mr. Bungle is the equivalent of 
a wild, confused ride through the annals of jazz, metal, noise, avant-
garde, polka, classical, soul, funk, thrash, death and everything else 
in between. Utilizing instruments that range from the most primitive of 
pieces - woodblock, cymbals, bongos - to more elaborate tools like the 
tenor sax, clarinet, Jews harp, xylophone, glockenspeil, piano and organ, 
Disco Volante is an experience like none other. From the slo-mo churn and 
steady, death-like chant of "Everyone I Went To High School With Is Dead" 
to the bizarre and bouncy "Merry Go Bye Bye" (which later transforms into 
a chaotic explosion of scratchy noise and death growls), Disco Volante is 
guaranteed to keep you on your toes. Mr. Bungle explodes with intense, 
schizophrenic originality on "Carry Stress In The Jaw," "Desert Search 
For Techno Allah," "Phlegmatics," "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" and "Platypus." 
Wear a helmet.  
© 1978-1998 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 	


Taking cues from Frank Zappa, Carl Stalling and John Zorn, and dabbling 
in styles as disparate as lounge, death-metal and downtown jazz, Mr. Bungle 
create a schizophrenic sound unlike any '90s major-label band save for The 
Boredoms. Yet where The Boredoms approach their music from two specific 
sources (free jazz and punk), Mr. Bungle easily triple or quadruple that 
figure when listing their influences. As with other genre-bending 
progressive music, the obvious question is do they pull it off? 
On DISCO VOLANTE, they do quite nicely, thank you. Whether it is on 
the Middle East-inflected "Desert Search For Techno Allah," or on complex 
pieces like "The Bends," Mr. Bungle use hypnotic sounds, jarring noise and 
tight playing to convey their drug-soaked and semi-insane point of view 
to the world. The juxtaposition of styles works well--both from track to 
track (the extra heavy "Everyone I Went To School With Is Dead" is followed 
by the lounge jazz number, "Chemical Marriage") and within a single song 
("Merry Go Bye Bye" leaps from a '50's rock sing-along to death-metal 
meltdown). Lyrically, Mr. Bungle piece together as many strange images 
as they do musically--"Carry Stress In The Jaw" quotes extensively from 
Edgar Allen Poe, while "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" seems to be written in a 
language all its own.  Tough to listen to but rewarding, Mr. Bungle place 
themselves alongside groups like The Melvins, Praxis and Naked City, all 
trying to push the sonic envelope further out.


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