TAG: Standard
PERIOD: Amsterdam
With the self titled, we’re into the first album of the Amsterdam period, and also the first publicly available sign that Omar was serious about recording as a solo artist. It does make sense, as apparently the record label contract for The Mars Volta requires an eighteen month gap between records, and since they don’t tour for that long, a burning mind like Omar’s had to be put to something. Still, I personally find self-titled records to be obnoxious. It presupposes a horrifying statement, that “This one recorded instance is this person.” And as Omar’s compositional and playing style expanded, his self-titled record seems like the fastest one to age.
The notable element of the record isn’t Omar, either. Rather, the centerpiece of the album is Adrian Terenez-Gonzalez. Adrian had joined the band with Frances The Mute, as a part of the dizzying expanded band on Cassandra Gemmini. The self-titled however shows a side of Adrian that wouldn’t surface until Amputechture: Adrian’s soloist abilities and the horseplay between himself and Omar. The result is a record that is more fusion jazz than krautrock, and it lays the ground for what Mars Volta came to mean as the decade moved on.
It’s evident as soon as the album starts moving, after the dry and filmic opening track tributed to filmmaker Ed van der Elsken. From that more somber track, the record springs forth with Regenbogen Stelen Van Prostituees, a song that heavily showcases the roughhousing between the two soloists. At times, Omar sounds out classed, playing without restraint in an attempt to stay on equal footing with the gorgeous whipping lines of Adrian’s sax.
The following two songs are comparatively even tempered. Jacob Van Lennepkade is hardly competitive at all, starting as a duet and then call and response. Vondelpark Bij Nacht is the slow song on the album, and also my least favorite. It’s a sitar drone with Adrian’s bass clarinet and, later, saxophone floating above it. The entire song abruptly cuts out, which I suppose is one way to communicate the end of an idea, and is followed by the roughshod Spookrijden Op Het Fietspad, a sprint to the finish of the record. It’s heavily overdubbed to add multiple layers of saxophone during the main theme, as Omar and Adrian do their best bebop freakout.
You’ve probably gathered by now that I’m not exactly enamored with this record. It’s a fine piece of recording and it demonstrates the introduction of Adrian Gonzalez as a full time member of the Mars Volta, which helps fill Amputechture out. It is certainly not worth being the namesake of Omar’s catalog of work, but I suppose it would have worked as an introduction for people who, with Omar’s solo work, were looking for “Mars Volta but less Cedric and more instruments.”
Fermata over Whole Rest 