Omar Rodriguez-Lopez: Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo

[Photo Credit]

Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo the new solo album from Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez will hit iTunes tomorrow via Gold Standard Laboratories. You can find it here (or by clicking on the buffalo below). Among the 10 tracks on the new album is the TMV staple from the last tour, "Rapid Fire Tollbooth", and (new?) version of "Please Heat This Eventually" (originally on Omar's album with Damo Suzuki).

Tracklisting:

1. "The Lukewarm"
2. "Luxury of Infancy"
3. "Rapid Fire Tollbooth"
4. "Thermometer Drinking the Bussness of Turnstiles"
5. "Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo"
6. "If Gravity Lulls, I Can Hear the World Pant"
7. "Please Heat This Eventually"
8. "Lurking About in a Cold Sweat (Held Together by Venom)"
9. "Boiling Death Request a Body to Rest Its Head On"
10. "La Tirania de la Tradicion"

Amazon.com lists the band name as Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet and, naturally, has samples of each track. You can also preview six tracks at Omar's MySpace page, which also references the quintet. You may notice John Frusciante in the photo portion of the MySpace page, John guests on the track "If Gravity Lulls, I Can Hear the World Panting". Surprisingly, Jon Theodore (ex-drummer, The Mars Volta) also guests on one of the tracks (10).

Wikipedia has other info on the album:

It is one of four albums written and recorded by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez whilst living in Amsterdam in 2005. Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo was conceived simultaneously to The Mars Volta's Amputechture and Omar’s soundtrack to the forthcoming Jorge Hernandez Aldana film, El Búfalo de la Noche; which is where the title for Se Dice originates. Omar expressed that this record is a response and expression of his feelings of the film, the soundtrack of which will feature The Mars Volta contributions.

El Búfalo de la Noche is a film directed by Jorge Hernandez Aldana and written by Guillermo Arriaga (based on his novel). You recognize Arriaga's name because he wrote Alejandro González Iñárritu's first three feature films: Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and last year's Babel. All of this sounds familiar because we talked about it way back when...

From the liner notes (via Wiki):

"This album was recorded in Amsterdam in November 2005 partially at my then home studio but mostly at 10 Catharina Can Renneslaan. It was engineered by Jon Debaun and myself and processed though the E-Clat Portable Morgue Disaster Unit with final overdubs done at Greg Ginn's warehouse in Long Beach. Robert Carranza mixed and prepared it for mastering, which was done by Pete Lyman at 5076 1/2 Alhambra Ave., Los Angeles. Longtime friend and collaborator Damon Locks created the artwork (everything but the photo on the back cover) and the ever-present Sonny Kay is once again responsible for the layout and design. I wrote these songs in reaction to working with maestros Guillermo Arriaca Jordan and Jorge Hernandez on their film and soundtrack album El Búfalo de la Noche. This album is for them."

 

MP3: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - "Boiling Death Request a Body to Rest Its Head On"
MP3: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - "If Gravity Lulls, I Can Hear the World Pant"

Mexico & Film: Inarritu's Golden Globe, Interview w. Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) @ Filter-Mag

Watching Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu accept this award was awesome. Not because the right movie won. But because it was the moment that the Mexican film industry finally got its due on a national stage. Inarritu kicks it off with a great shot at Ahnold, credits everyone that helped him and then uses it as an opportunity to inform the world about the Mexican film industry, from which three of the best movies this past year were born: Cuaron's Children of Men, del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Inarritu's Babel. Martin Scorcese can take note at the hunger and epic storytelling that fuels these films. It is the same hunger and vision he delivered in Mean Streets and GoodFellas, but failed to find in Gangs of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed. Scorcese will walk away with the Oscar this year, but it is, in essence, a lifetime achievement award. It will take years for the Oscars to catch up to the Golden Globes in terms of being close to the pulse of cinema, but it was at least special to see Inarritu giving Mexico its due on national television.
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Filter-Mag has an interview with Guillermo del Toro that ran in the Holiday edition of its magazine:

Q: There seems to be an aesthetic separation between your Spanish-language films and your English studio films. Is that a division that you like having?

A: I'm sort of playing it as I go, because I have not yet found a position in the studio system that allows me the freedom of something like Pan's Labyrinth. Look, if I had absolute freedom, I would do [H.P. Lovecraft's] Mountains of Madness tomorrow. But I would do it for the budget that it needs to be done, which is $80 or $85 million. I am not in that position, but hopefully one day I will be. I think Mountains is a deeply disturbing view.

But I believe that the taste of the audience is about the tale you're telling as much as how it's marketed. For example, if anybody walks into Pan's--and there may be many misguided souls who do this--expecting to find Harry Potter or another magical tale like Jim Henson's Dark Crystal, then they're going to come out of there fuming and with a fucking aneurysm. But if you market it properly and you say, "This is a war movie and a parable about brutality and innocence..." and you really juxtapose the war and the fantasy... I'm not saying it's easy, but at least people will know what to expect. As it is, most of the time, big budget marketing doesn't take those leaps. [More]

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Next to the 15 minute continuous shot in Children of Men during which Clive Owen dodges bullets and runs building to building in a war zone, the following scene in Babel was the most mesmerizing piece of cinema I saw all year. The actress playing Chieko, the deaf girl with a purple shirt, is Rinko Kikuchi. She is up for an Oscar. At least they got something right. If you remember, she blew me away.