Locus Solus

"Cut and paste rock beats, improvisational madness, impassioned vocals and horrible noise dating from early 1980s New York City," reads the cover of the Locus Solus compilation album collecting all of the band's original recordings. Circa 1983, Locus Solus was one of the first bands led by John Zorn. Originally a dadaist, free-improvisation, punk trio with several line-up changes and rotating members, Locus Solus played freely-improvised music at gigs at punk-rock clubs, such as CBGBs (often to hostile punk crowds not used to the freely-improvised music; which upon reflection in 1991...

John Zorn was the only consistent member of Locus Solus, since he was the leader (on alto and soprano saxophones, clarinets, game calls, whistles); the rotating band members that filled out the rest of the trio included Arto Lindsay (guitars and vocals), Christian Marclay (phonograph and recycled records), Peter Blegvad (vocals), M.E. Miller (drums), Anton Fier (drums), Wayne Horvitz (organ, electronics), Whiz Kid (turntable), and Ikue Mori (drums).

Eventually, a few years shy of a decade after the band had been retired, in 1991, Zorn compiled all of the Locus Solus studio recordings completed during the band's short lifetime and released a compilation-record under his own name (a decision he made at the time based on the fact that the band was long retired and mostly forgotten by time in New York's avant-garde scene; and it should also be noted that the record had a higher chance of selling if John Zorn's name was clearly displayed on the front).

In 2003, the line-up of Zorn, Arto Lindsay, and Anton Fier reformed Locus Solus to perform at Tonic in NYC as part of Zorn's 50th birthday celebration concert series (the concert was recorded and released as the third in the album-series of Zorn's 50th birthday concert series).