Civilization Phaze III is a double album

Double album

A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

 by Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

. It was the last album he completed before his death in 1993, and was released posthumously in December 1994 by The Zappa Family Trust on Barking Pumpkin Records

Barking Pumpkin Records

Barking Pumpkin Records was a record label created by Frank Zappa in 1981. The label was initially distributed by CBS Records from 1981–1984 and Capitol Records from 1984 - 1993. Records sold outside of the US and Canada were distributed by the Music for Nations label. In 1993, after Zappa's death,...

.

Categorized by Zappa as an "opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

-pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

", the project began as a vocal recording experiment in 1967, which Zappa describes in the liner notes

Liner notes

Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...

 (written in 1993):
These ramblings (many of which were first excerpted on Zappa's 1968 album Lumpy Gravy

Lumpy Gravy

Lumpy Gravy is the first solo album by Frank Zappa, originally released in 1967, but not generally available until May 1968. Zappa was credited as conductor on the album cover and he described the contents as "a curiously inconsistent piece, which started out to be a BALLET, but probably didn't...

and which later were described in the song "Evelyn A Modified Dog") were transformed into a vague plot involving pigs, ponies and other characters who live inside a piano. In 1991, additional dialog by Moon Unit Zappa

Moon Unit Zappa

Moon Unit Zappa is an American actress, musician and author. She goes by the name Moon Zappa; "Unit" is her middle name.-Personal life:...

, actor Michael Rapaport

Michael Rapaport

Michael David Rapaport is an American, actor, director and a comedian. He has acted in more than forty films since the early 1990s...

 and others was added. The musical portions are composed and recorded exclusively using the synclavier

Synclavier

The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...

, used first by Zappa on parts of Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger

Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger

Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger is a 1984 album featuring the music of Frank Zappa, conducted, in part, by Pierre Boulez. It is also known as, simply, The Perfect Stranger...

(1984) and later on most of the Grammy-award winning Jazz from Hell

Jazz from Hell

Jazz from Hell is a Grammy Award–winning instrumental album from Frank Zappa. It was released in 1986 by Barking Pumpkin Records and by Rykodisc .-Album information:...

(1986). On this album, however, Zappa's Synclavier has more realistic sampled instrument sounds instead of previous FM synthesis.

Act One

1. "This Is Phaze III" – 0:47
2. "Put a Motor in Yourself" – 5:13
3. "Oh-Umm" – 0:50
4. "They Made Me Eat It" – 1:48
5. "Reagan at Bitburg" – 5:39
6. "A Very Nice Body" – 1:00
7. "Navanax" – 1:40
8. "How the Pigs' Music Works" – 1:49
9. "Xmas Values" – 5:31
10. "Dark Water!" – 0:23
11. "Amnerika" – 3:03
12. "Have You Heard Their Band?" – 0:38
13. "Religious Superstition" – 0:43
14. "Saliva Can Only Take So Much" – 0:27
15. "Buffalo Voice" – 5:12
16. "Someplace Else Right Now" – 0:32
17. "Get a Life" – 2:20
18. "A Kayak (On Snow)" – 0:28
19. "N-Lite" – 18:00

Act Two

1. "I Wish Motorhead Would Come Back" – 0:14
2. "Secular Humanism" – 2:41
3. "Attack! Attack! Attack!" – 1:24
4. "I Was in a Drum" – 3:38
5. "A Different Octave" – 0:57
6. "This Ain't CNN" – 3:20
7. "The Pigs' Music" – 1:17
8. "A Pig with Wings" – 2:52
9. "This Is All Wrong" – 1:42
10. "Hot & Putrid" – 0:29
11. "Flowing Inside-Out" – 0:46
12. "I Had a Dream About That" – 0:27
13. "Gross Man" – 2:54
14. "A Tunnel into Muck" – 0:21
15. "Why Not?" – 2:18
16. "Put a Little Motor in 'Em" – 0:50
17. "You're Just Insultin' Me, Aren't You!" – 2:13
18. "Cold Light Generation" – 0:44
19. "Dio Fa"An Italian slang profanity, meaning "God damn" – 8:18
20. "That Would Be the End of That" – 0:35
21. "Beat the Reaper" – 15:23
22. "Waffenspiel" – 4:05

Personnel

• Frank Zappa
  Frank Zappa
  Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
  
   – producer, compiler, editor, composer, performer, conductor, liner notes
• Ensemble Modern
  Ensemble Modern
  Ensemble Modern is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries....
  
   – orchestra
• Dick Kunc – engineer (1967)
• David Dondorf – engineer (1991)
• Todd Yvega – engineer (1991)
• Spencer Chrislu – engineer (1991)
• Uri Balashov – cover design
• Command A Studios – art direction

1967 voices

• Spider Barbour
• All-Night John
• Frank Zappa
• Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood
  Euclid James Sherwood
  Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood is an American rock musician notable for playing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention...
  
  
• Roy Estrada
  Roy Estrada
  Roy Estrada is an American musician and backing vocalist, best known for his bass guitar work with Frank Zappa and for co-founding Little Feat.-Biography:With drummer Jimmy Carl Black and Ray Collins, Estrada was an original member of Frank Zappa's...
  
  
• Louis "The Turkey" Cuneo
• Monica
• Gilly Townley
• Unknown Girl #1
• Unknown Girl #2

1991 voices

• Moon Unit Zappa
  Moon Unit Zappa
  Moon Unit Zappa is an American actress, musician and author. She goes by the name Moon Zappa; "Unit" is her middle name.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Michael Rapaport
  Michael Rapaport
  Michael David Rapaport is an American, actor, director and a comedian. He has acted in more than forty films since the early 1990s...
  
  
• Ali N. Askin
• Catherine Milliken
• Walt Fowler
• Todd Yvega
• Michael Svoboda
• Michael Gross
• William Formann
• Uwe Dierksen
• Stefan Dohr
• Daryl Smith
• Franck Ollu
• Hermann Kretzschmar
• Dweezil Zappa
  Dweezil Zappa
  Dweezil Zappa is an American rock guitarist and occasional actor.-Early life:Zappa was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of musician Frank Zappa and Adelaide Gail Sloatman, who worked in business. He is the second of four siblings: his older sister, Moon, younger sister Diva and younger...
  
  

External links

• Lyrics and information
• Release details
• Review 1
• Review 2