LOS SUEOS DE UN HIGADO

The madman behind The Mars Volta, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is without a doubt the most prolific progressive rock artist of 2009. Here is a short album he recorded with his younger brother and some other folks, including the lovely Mexican singer Ximena Sariñana. More so than any other release, perhaps, this one contains highly accessible music, highly recommended to fans of smooth vocal jazz blended with slightly frenetic rock.

"Boiling Death Request A Body To Rest Its Head On" The first track consists of a funky bass groove and strange electronic sounds. Ultimately this piece works out to be an extended jazz rock jam saturated with Rodriguez-Lopez's guitar throughout the first half, while an electric piano solo takes over during the more subdued second half.

"How To Bill The Bilderberg Group" Sariñana has a slightly smoky, gritty sound on this song, which is an easygoing one filled with light guitar, piano, and fretless bass.

"Locomocion Capilar" This piece has a somewhat complex rhythm, which makes it interesting, but unfortunately the vocals don't go with the piece at all.

"Las Flores Con Limon" This begins as an atmospheric track with the sultry voice of Sariñana (sounding a bit like Amy Winehouse here), but it soon picks up and becomes something a bit heavier, going back and forth between sections. Overall, it is a very experimental piece and can be difficult to listen to in places.

"Victimas Del Cielo" The introduction to the final track jumps out loud and clear, but the heaviness quickly subsides to give way to gentle guitar and piano. This is Sariñana's best on the album; she sounds humid yet soars all at once- a stellar performance.

This is one of six (!) solo albums of The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodrigues Lopez, released in 2009. Everyone who knows what TMV is could expect synth /guit / scream chaos slightly modified to be named heavy prog there. You are absolutely wrong!!!

Even if big part of musician team there is the same as in TMV, music is absolutely different ( for those interested in more Voltian sound I cam recommend another Omar's solo album of 2009 - "Xenophanes").

Starting from very first sounds of very first composition ( it's instrumental) you understand , that the music of the album is ... heavy jazz-fusion! With strong bass line and nice guitar playing, filled with synth sound effects. And differently from many others works from TMV/Omar all the musical constructions are based on blues-rock/ latin rock basis.

All other songs have vocal, and that vocal is perfect female voice of Mexican singer Ximena Sarinan. Songs are melodic, rich in guitar sound ( soft beautiful latin rock guitar, not scratching and screaming TMV guitar) with very tasty jazzy arrangements. Keyboards in places sound as heavy version of early Chick Corea.

For me this album was a pleasant surprise ( I like TMV much) and I can say that the music there is kind of modern version of post- Latin jazz fusion. Absolutely interesting and recommended as accessible entrance to Omar and TMV music. But it is perfect album by itself as well ( just too short - 5 songs ,35+ minutes long).

One of the many Rodriguez-Lopez albums released in 2009, this one is taken from live recordings from the 2009 European Tour, and provides a bit of a contrast from the other recordings released that year.

The opening jazzy-rocky-bluesy-latiny jam Boiling Death Requests A Body To Rest Its Head On (not sure what that means but...) extends over 9 minutes and has plenty of the Rodriguez- Lopez manic guitar sounds. It's very easy to make these boring but the musicianship always interests.

The main problem with the rest of the tracks is the female vocals (all in Spanish) which don't really do much for me personally, it's mad I know, but I keep think how much better it would sound with Cedric on vocals, maybe it's a familiarity thing.

How to Bill the Bilderberg Group is an alternate longer version of the track that appears on the Old Money album, and probably the strongest of the "vocal" tracks.

The next two tracks are on Omar's latest release (Solar Gambling) and I'm sure they must sound better on there. The vocals really do grate on "Locomocion Capillar". "Las Flores Con Limon", is a much slower track and improves greatly on the previous track.

Victimas del Cielo rounds off the album with 8 minutes of "soaring" female vocals (I guess) and more stellar guitar work from Omar.

Rodriguez-Lopez is not too everyones taste I guess, as it is certainly isn't easy on the ear at first, but it is NOT just a relentless noise, it really does need time to listen and appreciate different layers of each track.

Why not head over to the Rodriguez-Lopez Productions website where you can stream just about every track on there and listen before committing yourself.

Well this is the first Omar album I have heard and I can truly say it's really good. Great guitar work, bass and drums (nice to hear Thomas Pridgen again working with Juan Alderete) giving a real groove - but actually the keyboard/electric piano work is truly inspiring also. Starting with a lengthy jazzy instrumental with a bizarre title - Omar really excels himself here. Then it gets really special - with each track better than the last with the beautiful vocal of Ximena Sariñana - oh how I wish she sang on more of Omar's albums!! Each track feels different from the rest with many different paces and moods. Locomocian Capillar rocks out the most, with a fascinating rhythm - and unlike some others I feel the vocal fits really well because it is so unusual. Las Flores is a fascinating piece with atmosphere, heaviness and eclecticness. Last but not least is the awesome Victimas Del Cielo - hightened by Ximena's amazing vocal here - her best performance of the lot with a great Omar solo to boot.

Apparently this was recorded live for the BBC - giving a certain rawness at times.

Highly recommended, just short of a masterpiece (only because it's a little too short) and it's not 100% perfect.

4 1/2 stars! Unfortunately have to round that down to 4....

Los sueños de un higado ends up being an ORL album that stands out for a couple of reasons, not only being a series of live performances, but also being the first time Omar made an album that was heavily based around the vocals of someone other than Cedric. It ends up making for an experience that right out of the gate feels rather different, made further apparent by the overall cleaner sound present here, with all the tones of the instruments sounding rather similar, but just a bit more "pleasant" for lack of a better word. While at first this may seem like a totally pointless listen, with the tracks being the same jazzy jams as certain other previous works by Omar, the vocal performances of Ximena Sarian do a decent job at breathing new life into these tracks with her wonderful, passionate delivery throughout. Even with that fact proving yet again that he's able to reinvent old tracks time and time again in a variety of novel ways (in this case adding those vocals), I still couldn't really recommend this above a lot of Omar's other albums for the simple reason that while all of this is performed very competently and the vocals are wonderful, the album doesn't really go above and beyond that, it's merely good, it's safe, it's just not a good showcase of a lot of the unfiltered creativity that makes me love so much of ORL's work. Worth a listen if you're a big fan, but otherwise I'd suggest listening to quite a few other albums first.