PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone

‘PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone’ was released in 2012, and was the first solo album by John Frusciante that saw him fully embrace the influence he drew from electronic music. He had previously experimented with the genre on 2004’s ‘A Sphere In The Heart of Silence’, a collaborative effort with his friend Josh Klinghoffer, who would later go on to take his place as the guitarist in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

John’s change in direction was anticipated by the release of the Letur-Lefr EP, a 5-track offering that fused together experimental rock, hip-hop, synthpop and drum and bass to create a sound unique to him.

On his blog, John explained the meaning behind the album’s title, stating that “PBX refers to an internal communication system. There is a natural version of this, wherein the ‘business or office’ is a person. A funicular involves two trams connected by a cable, one going up while the other goes down. All music perpetually does this on many levels simultaneously. Intaglio is a technique in sculpture where one works on the opposite side of the image, whereby the image will eventually appear to the spectator in relief, but the angle the sculptor works from is the negation of that. In music that I like, an approach analogous to this was employed, the more so the better. Zone refers to a state of mind wherein the rest of the world seemingly disappears, and nothing matters but the union of one’s immediate surroundings with one’s feelings. These four words linked together go far to describing my creative process.”