Grand Guignol (album)

Grand Guignol
Studio album by
Released1992
Recorded1989−1992
Genre
Length62:00
LabelAvant
ProducerJohn Zorn
Naked City chronology
Torture Garden
(1990)
Grand Guignol
(1992)
Heretic
(1992)
John Zorn chronology
Buried Secrets
(1992)
Grand Guignol
(1992)
Elegy
(1992)

Grand Guignol is the second full-length studio album released by John Zorn's band Naked City in 1992 on the Japanese Avant label. The album followed Torture Garden, which was a compilation of "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol. The album is notable for the inclusion of cover versions of pieces written by classical composers, the guest vocal of Bob Dorough, and also, like Torture Garden, a selection of "hardcore miniatures" (tracks 9–41) which are intense, fast-tempo, brief compositions, which feature the wailing of Zorn's alto sax, and the screams of Yamatsuka Eye. The album is titled after the infamous Grand Guignol theater in Paris, which was open from 1897 to 1962, where performances centered around extreme violence.

Grand Guignol was remastered and re-released in 2005 as part of the Tzadik box set Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings, with the bonus track "Grand Guignol (Version Vocale)" featuring Mike Patton, and an altered track sequencing.