Commentary / Reviews

"Everyone I Went To Highschool With Is Dead" was written years before the album was recorded and performed during Bungle's 1992 tour of the US - a reference to it is even mentioned in the video for "My Ass is on Fire".
"Platypus" is also an older tune which was recorded for their self titled album in the early 90's but it never made the cut - each version, while sharing many qualities, has different instrumentation.
The tune heard after "Carry Stress In The Jaw" has an interesting story - the song was recorded without bassist Trevor Dunn and no one had told him about it. When he did get a copy of it, he added the Grandpa Simpson-esque lyrics in response. The new lyrics were kept from band members knowledge until shortly before the album was released! All other vocals on the song were recorded by Mike Patton.
The album's title "Disco Volante" is also the title of the 32th track on John Zorn's "Locus Solus" album (1997 / Tzadik #7303).

Fanthazma (The musical world of Mike Patton)

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."

Imagine Frank Zappa composing the soundtrack for Ed Wood's Plan Nine from Outer Space, or the Residents unleashing a techno-dance project: that should give you some idea of Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante, an album of cheesy synthesizers, mangled disco beats, virtuosic playing, and juvenile noises. Like the Residents, Mr. Bungle is a Northern California band that obscures its true identity (it shares members with Faith No More) by prohibiting photos of its members and by using such funny names as I Quit (the drummer) and Uncooked Meat Prior to State Vector Collapse (the keyboardist). Like Zappa, the Mr. Bungle musicians like to show off their classical, jazz, and worldbeat influences in fast, difficult passages that are technically impressive but never seem to go anywhere. All but three of the album's dozen pieces feature lyrics, but the vocals are so deeply buried in the mix that the words are virtually indecipherable. The pieces are more accurately described as aural montages than songs, for short sections erupt and suddenly disappear, replaced by another passage just as well played and just as clever but with little connection to what preceded it. For listeners who enjoy the constant surprise of such arbitrary musical detours, Mr. Bungle provides much better musicianship than the Residents but less coherence than Zappa.

--Geoffrey Himes

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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Mr. Bungle is the musical equivalent of a David Lynch movie. On their uncompromising second release, Disco Volante, the group focuses their sound a bit more than on their 1991 self-titled debut, but still keeps things unruly and completely unpredictable. This is a band whose sole purpose is to break all the pre-existing rules of music, and doesn't think twice about taking chances. What they've created in the process is a totally original and new musical style, and an album that sounds like nothing which currently exists. The group, whose members go by aliases, may be the most talented rock instrumentalists today, as they skip musical genres effortlessly, while Mike Patton illustrates why many consider him to be the best singer in rock. The group tackles plodding death metal ("Everyone I Went to High School With Is Dead"), deranged children's songs ("After School Special"), and a Middle Eastern techno number that has to be heard to be believed ("Desert Search for Techno Allah"). Many of the songs radically change genres mid-song, encompassing the sounds of Ennio Morricone, John Zorn, Frank Zappa, and other heretofore un-thought-of musical mutations. Not music to unwind to after a hard day, but it will challenge your mind when the right mood hits.

— Greg Prato

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.

CMJ New Music Report Issue: 450 - Nov 06, 1995

Quick Quotes

Q Magazine (4/96, p.100) - 2 Stars - Average - "...A tad anarchic Zappa, a touch devilish David Lynch, Disco Volante is not for the aurally fragile, but it may offer a smile to the more hardy avant-garde listener..."
Melody Maker (1/27/96, p.35) - "...inhabits that Majorly grey area where high-art blurs into high-noodling....akin to getting lost in a sprawling, dimly lit and dilapidated mansion. By the end of it, you're stumbling into rooms even the owners don't go in any more..."