Adult Themes for Voice is a 1996 album by Mike Patton. Recorded in hotel rooms while touring as a member of Faith No More, the album is solely composed of vocal sounds arranged as noise music. Released on John Zorn's Tzadik Records label, the album has largely met with negative reviews citing its abstruse and inaccessible nature.
Production
Adult Themes for Voice is composed entirely of sounds produced vocally by Mike Patton, featuring no other instrumentation. The compositions include sounds described as "harsh scraping noises, squeaks, and underwater sounds". Writing for Exclaim!, Joe Smith-Englehardt has described the album as "noise for the sake of noise", noting Patton's "incredibly unique vocals". Writing in the book Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork, philosophy professor Bill Martin compared the album to Yoko Ono's 1971 release Fly, and to the vocal techniques of Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara. Martin described the album as "quite radical", but questioned whether it would appeal to any particular audience.