Wednesday 26 May 2010

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Old Money 2008


















Recorded after The Mars Volta album
"Amputechture", this is an astounding
record of densely textured guitar freak
outs, with the usual Omar trademark
of effect pedals, tightly woven with seemingly
every instrument he could lay his hands on
but never losing the incredible groove -
kinda like Carlos Santana on speed, playing
with a gun to his head in case he slows down!

Rodriguez-Lopez is a hugely prolific artist -
At The Drive In/Mars Volta/De Facto + all
his solo stuff. Sometimes I think he suffers
from the "Zappa Syndrome" - a lot of his albums
do tend to blend into each other - maybe a bit
of editing/pruning required just to slow him
down and become more cohesive......... pah!
what do I know?

Old Money is my personal fave - go on, give
it a Listen

5 comments:

  1. I own all of his solo stuff, all of the volta, all of De Facto and a few other odd bits, the man can do no wrong.
    A lot of his albums tend to blend into each other because he records them one after the other. 4 albums a year, nobody can question the mans enthusiasm

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've got most of his stuff - don't get me wrong, I think it's all fantastic but to the unwary listener, it can get a bit bewildering ..... me, I hope he keeps on doing what he does.

    I only mentioned the Zappa comparison because I think Omar is the only person around today with the ability to start to amass a huge body of important work like FZ.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with the Zappa comparison like. I just wish he would play live over here more with his solo stuff and El Grupo. I've seen the mars volta twice now and the first time blew me away, the second time was a bit of a swing and a miss, very static onstage (which is unlike them) and didn't ever really seem to make an impact. That said I had just came from watching Sunn for the 3rd time in a week, all I knew was slow and loud.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thats a wonderful and inspiring record :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's probably my most played of his solo stuff.

    ReplyDelete