Review Summary: A surreal performance caught on tape.
There is a strange kind of magic that occurs at Psychedelic concerts. There is something about the sounds the instruments make that completely takes you away. There is this hypnotic, almost spiritual effect coming from the sounds we hear, it's surreal. The musicians are often lost in their own world, focused solely in the music. This is why psychedelic bands often improvise with their songs on a live setting, they become spellbound by their own music and just let their hands and voices work on a subconscious level. Some of the best music ever performed have come from these kind of settings. The atmosphere of it's settings are often filled with drug use, it's even encouraged, which often makes the experience even more intense. Drugs like LSD and marijuana really make music sound in a way that is indescribable, something you could only understand if you, yourself, have experienced. Every note, every beat, very word, when it enters and flows into your ears, it sounds so much different from when you're sober. It sounds so alive, so vivid, like it's the first time you're hearing the music, even if you've heard the same song a million times before.
The Mars Volta is renowned for their live performances. They can create a trancing atmosphere of ethereal psychedelia as easily as they can deliver powerful energetic eruptions, it's almost breathtaking to witness. All of the band members have developed such a synergy with each other that even we can feel it from where we're standing, as we gaze upon the art they're creating. The lengthy improvisations, the way they rewrite their own songs before our eyes, it's almost disappointing how very few bands tend to take their concerts that seriously nowadays. In an interview, A fan once asked Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez how they are able to recreate the atmosphere and intensity from their albums so easily in live settings, to which Cedric responded;
"Well, we try not to. The album is the album, and in a live setting there is room for improvisation, but It's a gamble. The improvisation could either be great and the fans dig it, or it could fail completely."
Omar tried to capture the intensity of their live shows by producing the band's first Live album,
Scabdates. Well, it wasn't a true live album because it incorporated some Ambient and Musique concrète tracks that were developed in the studio for the album. Needless to say, the live songs contain moments of dexterous musicianship that are works of art. But the reason the opinions on that album are often divided is because a large portion of the album is ambient noises and not their music. This newfound admiration and enthusiasm for ambience would later be orchestrated much more fluently in their second studio album,
Frances The Mute.
Los Sueños De Un Higado is Omar's second attempt at producing a live album, only this time with his own personal projects. The band that was formed for this project performed under the moniker, The Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group, which consist of the main instrumental members from The Mars Volta. This is also the first album to feature famed Mexican singer, Ximena Sariñana, who is also Omar's girlfriend. This album features no ambient tracks, only the live performances from which it was recorded. The band performs one known song,
"Boiling Death Request A Body To Rest Its Head On", from
Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo. The performance is completely different from the album version. It contains the same baseline, but the music is much more energetic and is improvised to the point where it may not be easily recognized. There is another song with a familiar name, but a completely different face, and that is,
"How To Bill The Bilderberg Group". The song has been completely reworked and features vocals from Ximena. Her vocals are quite stunning in a very restrained way. Her style of singing is very soothing, it's soft but she has a real feel for the emotion behind the instruments and translates them in her own words.
The album features a multitude of previously unreleased songs. All of which are much more emotional and alive in this setting than in their studio incarnations. The atmosphere that is produced in this concert is truly surreal. Most of the songs, which derive from different albums, are reworked to compliment each other in an engenius fashion.
"Las Flores Con Limón" is perhaps the highlight of this performance, there is a dexterous synergy between the band. From the hypnotic ambience decorated in psychedelia being produce Omar and Marcel Rodriguez-López, setting a up a gloomy atmosphere for Ximena's confessions of romantic anguish, to Thomas Pridgen and Juan Alderete who erupt into powerful, yet restrained deliveries during the choruses. This is an album that must be heard by any fan of The Mars Volta or Omar's solo bands, the performance they give is one that will lament it's listeners for not being their to see it in person.
