Civilization Phaze III
1994 double studio album by Frank Zappa
Civilization Phaze III is the sixty-third album by Frank Zappa, released posthumously as a double album on October 31, 1994. It was the first studio album of new material from Zappa since 1986's Jazz from Hell. The album marks the third part of a conceptual continuity that started with We're Only in It for the Money (1968), with the second part being the 1968 re-edited version of Lumpy Gravy. Zappa described the album as a "two-act opera", but in lieu of traditional recitatives and arias, it alternates brief spoken word passages with musical numbers created on a Synclavier using a combination of sampled and synthesized sounds. Much of the sampled material in the second half of the album was originally recorded by Ensemble Modern and other musicians to Zappa's specifications.
The storyline of Civilization Phaze III involves a group of people living inside a piano, and the menacing reality of the outside world. The album's themes include personal isolation and nationalism. Much of the album's improvised dialogue was originally recorded as part of sessions which produced We're Only in It for the Money and Uncle Meat, which contained some dialogue by the same speakers, and some of the dialogue on this album previously appeared on the re-edited version of Lumpy Gravy released in 1968. New dialogue was recorded by Zappa in 1991, and includes similarly improvised dialogue by members of Ensemble Modern, Zappa's daughter Moon Unit and actor Michael Rapaport.
Background
In 1967, while recording We're Only in It for the Money with the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa discovered that the strings of Apostolic Studios' grand piano would resonate if a person spoke near those strings.
“Civilization Phaze III” enters the record as 1994 double studio album by Frank Zappa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Civilization, Phaze and double can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q867741. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1986, 1968 and 1991.
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