So while the Complete & Accurate Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is so far big ambition and little writing, I do still keep up to date with the man’s music, and over the year he dropped eight full recordings. They all held a great degree of variety and importance to his development as a composer, and they’re mostly fine records.
For the record: I’m not as willing to count the live record as a part of critical analysis, and as I was writing this, Un Escorpion Perfumado was released. That’s why those two aren’t on here.
I’m going to address them in quicker detail, as to save content for future entries in the C&A: Over half of the releases featured Ximena Sarinana, with two of those albums being incredibly noteworthy. Two other albums were noted by the participation of John Fruiscante, an important figure in the history of The Mars Volta. The other two records, I have little to say about at the moment, given I’ve made it through Mantra Hiroshima once and Un Escorpion Perfumado nonce. I will say that I wasn’t particularly taken by Mantra on the first listen, though.
So which of these records was the best released in 2010?
The main consideration I made when determining at least this year’s award is the approachability of the albums. Cizana De Los Amores is the closest Omar has yet come to a pure pop record, a notable element of his work with Ximana. It’s a calmer record than the first two to feature her (Xenophanes and Solar Gambling) and has strengths all on it’s own. At the same time, it is a quintessential Rodriguez-Lopez work: heavy grooves and dissonant guitar work with what could be dismissed as psychadelia in the production and lyrics.
The one gripe I have with the record is that the intro is maybe a little long winded, a droning and dramatic piece centered around cavernous piano and the smooth voice of Lisa Papineau. After it passes, though, the record picks up incredible steam, peaking with a two track suite. “De Piedra” specifically is an incredible work, a blurry flight of a song building off of the warm sounds of “Corazon.” The descent of this album into the conclusion is smooth and marked with one of the strongest hooks on the album in “Infiel Hasta La Muerte,” a jazzy outro in “Nada De Amor,” and a subversive conclusion in “Carne De Perro.” The album fades out just as the horseplay between Omar’s talented musicians begins to come to a head, an unusually teasing conclusion that leaves more on the table than Omar has ever demonstrated the ability. Maybe that’s the most remarkable part of all of the records made around Sarinana; the restraint that’s developed from all of it. That restraint could be an incredibly effective tool in Omar’s hands given that he has so still much to show, and is now willing to let his ideas last as long as they can.
Fermata over Whole Rest 