The Ultra Zone

This is the sixth studio album, released by Epic on 7 September 1999 as EK 69817, thirteen tracks. SME Records had already put out the Japanese edition on 21 August as SRCS-8977, with fourteen: it adds Selfless Love. The shape is close to that of the previous album, Fire Garden - instrumentals mostly first, songs with vocals mostly later - but it is not formally divided into phases the way Fire Garden is. Two tracks are tributes to other guitarists: Frank, for Frank Zappa, and Jibboom, for Stevie Ray Vaughan. The closing Asian Sky features Koshi Inaba and Tak Matsumoto of the Japanese duo B'z. This was Vai's last studio album of new material until Real Illusions: Reflections in 2005; what came out in between was compilations and live records. The running order here is the import CD's as printed.