Beyond Good & Evil: Simulacrum Live

This CD mostly demonstrates Simulacrum’s ability to execute the melodic hairpin turns and lightning-fast tempo changes of John Zorn’s music in real time. The pieces are as close as possible to perfect reproductions of the studio versions; the running times may vary by a few seconds from the originals, as heard on the band’s first four CDs, but there’s little or no improvisation. The music is performed as written, and recorded beautifully (Firehouse 12, where the concert took place, has an in-house studio) without even crowd noise.