MANTRA HIROSHIMA

One more ORL release of year 2010 is his return to collaboration with Hella drummer Zach Hill (Hill participated in recording of El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez (album Cryptomnesia) in 2009).

Omar is extremely productive with his solo releases during last few years, but you never know what the music will be presented on every new release. This time it's spacey psychedelic jamming,played by trio (ORL, his regular collaborator Juan Alderete de la Pena and drummer Zach Hill). Music is complex, drumming is really great,and I like some guitar works and electronic effects as well. As on many Omar's latest albums, there are strong jazz fusion and math rock influence in music.

Main problem with this release there are no compositions at all. Ain't like I hate free improvisations, no - I really like such kind of music! But the musicians should be extremely talented and inspired to play such ambitious kind of music at high level. I have no negative comments on musicianship level on this album, all artists are really great.

But musical material isn't. In fact all recordings sound as rehearsal/jamming session, without any concept,idea or structure. There are many of interesting moments , but in whole it doesn't sound as material for album. Possibly, fans could enjoy musicianship and jamming there in this music, but recordings are really to raw and unfocused to attract unprepared listener.

My rating is 2,5, for the name of Omar's talent rounded to 3.