Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Weekly Mansions (2016)

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (Mars Volta, At the Drive-In) releases 12 recordes on the way over the next 6 months. These albums feature material recorded between 2008 and 2013, while Rodriguez-Lopez lived in Zapopan, Mexico and as well as his eventual return to El Paso. Co-written with his brother Marcel, the opening track of Weekly Mansions is almost a trap. It has to be there just to make you think you’re in for a long, strange trip through Ambient Noiseland. Rhythmic drums accompanied by long sustained synthesizer notes drone on and on, as distorted hammerings join a cavalcade of other sounds, leading nowhere until the song drowns out. Disappointment swept across my face at first listen. The next track, “Rotten Straw Lips,” opens with what I like to call “muted wub-wub percussion” just another sign that we have opened another experimental album in the ORL discography. But with the sudden crack of an electronic whip, “Rotten Straw Lips” turns on a dime and welcomes you to Omar and Marcels’ electro-dance album and by fucking god, it is glorious.

TRACKLIST

01. Essential Punishments
02. Rotten Straw Lips
03. Metallic Sweating For The Rich
04. Science Urges
05. Want, Need, Sream In A Dream
06. Sophia As Well
07. The Editor
08. A Little Old Picnic In Fort Collins
09. Disheartening Envelope
10. Get In There Before You Sour
11. Head Is Made of Straw
12. Right On My Finger
13. They Ain't Kidding Me
14. Bone Fat