Dreamachines (2013)

"This set closely mirrors "Nova Express" (2011), employing the same band: John Medeski (p), Trevor Dunn (b), Kenny Wollesen (vib), and Joey Baron (d). Zorn offers some freer improvisational jazz pieces by the set bookends, "Psychic Conspirators" and "The Wild Boys," the former driven by speedy, demanding work by Wollesen, the latter with deft, free-thinking piano by Medeski. The crystalline "The Dream Machine" and the atmospheric "Git-le-Coeur" resemble the Dreamers projects. The spacious and tentative "Light Chapels" and the knotty, arpeggiated exploration in "Note Virus" are more angular and classical in character. Finally, he references the Jewish and Middle Eastern folk melodies and modalism performed by some of the groups assembled to play his Masada composition books in the exotic "The Conqueror Worm" and "1001 Nights in Marrakech." "Dreamachines" does vary widely in terms of style, but Zorn is a magician when it comes to creating compositional, dynamic, and textural balances." (Thom Jurek, Allmusic)