Marc Ribot is the first virtuoso to take on John Zorn's set of 35 guitar etudes from 1978, although the set was originally written for Eugene Chadbourne. Ribot's been incorporating the pieces into his solo performances and recordings since he recorded them for Tzadik in 1995, but seeing them performed almost in toto (a few were omitted) reinforced how the work fit into Zorn's aesthetic of the time.

What's often missed about Zorn's jump-cut compositions is that they weren't studio creations; even pieces like Spillaine were meant to be (and were) performed live. Book of Heads is something like Naked City for solo guitar. Country and blues licks are quashed as soon as they're recognizeable, there are hints of classicism and noise often overtakes. The mood swings are achieved on many of the pieces through heavy use of distortion and wah pedals, bottleneck slide, balloons muting strings until they break, bowing styrofoam, knocking on the guitar body and augmenting the strings with a nail file and alligator clips (exercises which, in fact, bear Chadbourne's stamp). Ribot approached the suite as a concert performance, eyes focused on the small scores, rarely cracking a smile as he licked his fingers and squeaked a balloon held between his knees or ran his hands in opposite directions along the guitar neck while blasting the distortion pedal. As his arsenal, he brought a dead beautiful Gitane copy of Django Reinhart's Maccaferri and an Audition electric hollow body with that lived-in look. (The latter might not have been the best choice, as floating bridges weren't designed to withstand a drinking straw being drug across them. Fortunately, the composition allows for interpretation and the noice made readjusting it wasn't out of place.) Another piece required three guitars laid on a table, the strings of two damped by a sweater and all plucked like a koto above the nut and below the bridge;in a later piece they were played with a bow in each hand.

The etudes are brief, abrupt, imposing, assuming and sardonic. What doesn't come through as clearly on record, or in truncated performance, is the instances of beauty they also contain. They work from a claustrophobic little closet of sound, but within that achieve some striking moments.