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"

Arriaga + Omar = Head-splosion

"Rodriguez-Lopez, who is working on music for Guillermo Arriaga's forthcoming film The Night Buffalo as well as his own, five-years-in-the-making movie,..." [MTV.com]

Arriaga? As in the guy that wrote Babel, Amores Perros, and 21 Grams? Sign me the fuck up. It is a small, small world when you love great things.

Babel is Breathtaking

The most disgusting part of my weekend, oddly enough, came in the middle of one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a theater this year. Babel, the new movie from acclaimed director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, is a breathtaking achievement. While I still believe that Amores Perros is the strongest installment in his trilogy of films (also including 21 Grams) with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, Babel is a force to be reckoned with.

While Babel has haunted me the past few days with its stark imagery and beautiful cinematography, the vision of Rinko Kikuchi (delivering a flawless portrayal of the deaf-mute character of Chieko) entering a discotheque has circled my thoughts relentlessly. Rinko delivers, perhaps, the best performance in Babel. She also provided the audience at the E Street Theater an opportunity to gasp, or chuckle, or in some other way, malign the nature of communication between deaf-mutes. Therein lies the most disgusting part of my weekend.

In the theater that night, the place that people are frequently exposed to worlds they otherwise might never see, I found people mocking the very disability that Innaritu and Arriaga so valiantly capture in gut-wrenching scenes about youth and sexuality. Granted, it was not overt, but it was noticeable. As Chieko grunted and signed her way through conversations with her friends and father, people laughed quietly in their seats. It was not an isolated incident. As a Moroccan family eats their food, sitting on the ground, with their bare hands, people giggled or whispered in their neighbor's ear. I was too wrapped in the delicate, fluid pace of the film to bother. But I am still pissed. And disappointed.

There is a good chance you might not offend anyone who is deaf-mute in a setting like that. With the lights off and everyone facing forward, they might not understand you. Hopefully, they wouldn't give you the opportunity to make an excuse, or apologize. It is simply deplorable behavior, that I would hope, in this day and age, wouldn't exist. Especially in an Innaritu film on the night after its limited release. But it does. Hopefully Innaritu continues to make these beautiful films about understanding, life, loss and hope. This world desperately needs them.

Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel are all cinematic marvels that reach into the complex worlds of relationships, religion, international relations, Christianity, sex, and violence in places such as Mexico, Japan, Morocco, and California only to create seamless revelations on love, faith, and humaity. There are definitely misguided people that need these films, to break their misconceptions and help them realize that whether you are born with the ability to hear or not, if you have the luxury of a developed society or not, we are all still pumping the same blood, breathing the same air and trying to understand the subtleties of life and the nuances of our neighbor.

Babel opens everywhere Friday.