 Given its range, depth, and breadth, it's utterly fitting that Old Money, the January 2009 offering from the increasingly prolific Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitarist, producer, composer, and arranger for the Mars Volta), is his debut for the mind-bending Stone's Throw imprint. On this conceptual recording very loosely based around themes of childhood dreams, nightmares, and colonial capitalism, Rodriguez-Lopez and his musical partners -- who include Juan Alderete de la Peña on bass; Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez on percussion and synths; Deantoni Parks, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and Jon Theodore alternating on drums; and Adrian Terrazas-Gonzaleson winds -- whip up the most ambitious stew he's ever created. As a guitarist, Omar has continued absorbing the knotty winding path blazed by Frank Zappa. He's also learned from him compositionally. This music may sound unhinged, loose, and utterly mind-melting in terms of its madness, but rest assured, it is scripted and recorded quite carefully. Check "Population Council's Wet Dream," as the trio of Omar (on theremin and synths as well as guitar), Alderete de la Peña, and Theodore create a power trio of a track that would not have sounded out of place on either Zappa's Hot Rats or Billy Cobham's Spectrum. The crisscrossing rhythms, key shifts, and dynamic changes that occur within this driving, intensely focused composition may feel at times like a jam, but it's far too intricate for that. "Private Fortunes" is like its mirror image, even as Omar, who plays various keys and synths as well as bass and guitar, duets with Marcel. The faux strings, rubbery keyboard sounds, and blazing guitar solo interact beautifully with Marcel's hand drums and Latin rhythms. The closest thing to an all-out jam here is the humorously titled "I Like the Rockefellers' First Two Records, But After That...," where layers of guitars and keyboards swirl around each other but are tempered by a dubby rhythm section keeping everything anchored in a single time signature -- seemingly. But even it stretches and morphs after a bit. The set closes with the title track, the longest track here. It begins like one of Omar's soundtrack compositions, with muted fuzzy guitars layered in wah-wah and reverb as well as controlled feedback and playing in harmonic extensions of one another, with killer breaks by Marcel and Alderete de la Peña's popping bassline urging on the guitars. Marcel adds a clavinet to make things even more mutantly funky, but it just ROCKS! This may be the most over the top rock recording that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has released to date, but it nonetheless contains all the imaginative and sophisticated musical elements that have made him so compelling as an artist. In fact, Old Money is so far-reaching, it will likely piss off some of his fans while making others nearly swoon with its unwieldy rockist excesses. As for winning new fans to his cause? You bet....full text |
I’m going to level with y’all: Reviewing CDs is a thankless task that can make a guy feel like a number, a drone, a cubicle-filling piece of pooh-paste not worthy of shining the secondhand shoes of the indie heroes whose work is being evaluated. If you tear an artist’s work to shreds, your conscience starts sounding off; if you don’t take a record seriously enough, the bands/labels start sounding off; and if you laud an artist too much, you come off like the worst kind of ballgagger: the type who will suckle in print.
You also take the daily risk committing the ultimate sin where lack of foresight is concerned: Failing to recognize a work of genius (also known as the Siskel-hating-on-Star-Wars Syndrome), which to a large extent will determine whether you’re forgotten with the other losers who confidently panned Blood on the Tracks upon its release or if you’re penning the liner notes for the latest Dylan retrospective (of which there will be millions)....full text |
| As a side project for an already cultish band, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s Old Money is destined to achieve instant bro-you-gotta-hear-this status for some and glance harmlessly off of most. Though the Mars Volta guitarist drops in ambient marimba (“Private Fortunes”), sludge-dub drums (“How To Bill the Bilderberg Group”), free sax/synth squonk (“Trilateral Commission as Dinner Guests”) and the occasional keyboard solo (“Family War Funding (Love Those Rothchilds)”), Old Money is basically an album of guitar jams. Coiled with elliptical melodies, vintage David Gilmour reverb and dense layering, Old Money also has its share of drum-less bedroom sessions (“1921”). The tongue-in-cheek song titles—see: “I Like the Rockefellers’ First Two Records, But After That...”—keep the sensibility au courant, despite the historical references. It’s not necessarily an obvious headphone album, but—perhaps due to the lack of vocals—there’s a vast space in which to get lost, found and lost all over again....full text |
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