WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE MIDDLE? // The Mars Volta - Ouroborous // Composer Reaction & Analysis

[@plokky8052]

Bryan getting increasingly peeved with each The Mars Volta request is starting to become my favorite part of this channel.😛

[@AscendedWalrus]

Thomas Pridgen really brought the heat to the percussion on this album

[@bartomiejkunda1129]

He was 24 when he recorded those parts. What a legend.

[@AscendedWalrus]

The cohesion you're looking for is the album in its entirety. Listening to one TMV song is kind of like listening to 20 seconds of a less experimental song. You never have the context of the album and the themes and even recurring melodies.

[@andrewrigney5888]

Yesss we love to see more Mars Volta reactions!!

[@tripwirealarm]

That distorted voice is supposed to be Goliath speaking.

[@erickmunguia2343]

Seeing Bryan so puzzled every time by the Mars Volta is so bewildering and amazing to me. They're his natural counter. 😂

[@SpeedOfThought1111]

They have a documentary that's coming out now. I saw something just the other day about Omar & Cedric basically agreeing that after their 3rd album Amputechture they lost their way a little, which I found to be a little suprising personally as I love all their music. As others might've mentioned to you before about this album, it's particularly infamous for being one of the most cursed recording sessions ever because they had bought a 100+ year old ouija/divination board from mexico that brought hauntings and destruction upon them.

[@bachache9833]

i heard they went through many unfortunate events during this time too, like deaths and equipment being flooded, as they described this album as a winter compared to the album after this which was the spring.

[@Neorigg]

let's goooo this album is so good

[@raidervillalobos6457]

Cedric in a Narduar interview said “our run-on sentences we call songs”

[@drosera88]

Usually when you get a shift in the music in this album, it's a shift in character. Goliath is four characters wrapped into one, and there's a few times throughout where they try to speak over each other, take control of the narrative, put words in each other's mouths, or directly address the band/listener, and I think that's what's going on in the middle section. Either way, it's surreal and at times unsettling. I also never really saw this as more experimental than Frances the Mute, but as always your perspective on this has made me rethink what I thought about the Mars Volta as a whole. Now I'm kind of seeing Frances the Mute as different kind of experimental than Bedlam in Goliath. Frances the Mute likes to explore the story in the long meandering jam segments and interludes, while Bedlam in Goliath is more in your face with the story, preferring to let the characters stay front and center as the music tries its best to accommodate the chaotic shifting emotions and thoughts in the vocals. Thanks for taking my selection by the way. You make me think about this stuff more than usual which really helps me to appreciate it more.

[@acomamind]

man was i hooked, seeing u again covering a tmv track. a track that has some kinda high rank in my musicial gusto hierarchy. again u deliver with trying to go as deep into it as u can go after hearing it the first time. always interesting to follow and reflecting alongside. something i never did the last 16 years knowing the track, having heard it like, i guess, many hundreds of times. my approach to music is always for use of emotional and inspirational reasons. and for me the richness of contrasts in the song in matters of pace, loudness, aggression, variations, density and lots of other things in that compact form is a joyful experience every time it enters my ears again. i studied music back then and checked out soon after, as i understood that it could decrypt my love to music in general and i didnt want to loose that. i am much older now and its sad i dont have all the knowledge i could have^^. the good thing is: i am still in love with songs like that. and i am in love with their kind of creativity.

[@bjhough3925]

Yes a full album analysis would be a better perspective for this band

[@robdaniel3211]

This is definitely my favorite record of theirs, but I do love the first half of the record more. To me some of it sounds like classic old Santana on crack and acid. Thomas Pridgen’s drumming on this album is one of my favorite drum albums.

[@ElHombretheman]

Holy shit he’s back LOL I’m excited to see this one

[@joseluna6890]

This whole album is worth reviewing, it's their peak.

[@bartomiejkunda1129]

Hahaha, you and Mars Volta again, it's hard to believe people are still trying to make you like it :D Ok, so I won't be able to explain the lyrical concept of the album, but I might give some general context. Bedlam in Goliath is definitely the most difficult volta record to listen to. It starts with a huge wall of sound from the very first second of the first song - "Abernikula". The whole album (12 songs, the rest of 19 you mentioned are some bonuses, covers, demos etc.) lasts 75 minutes and it is all very noisy, dissonant, layered and apparently intentionally over-produced. Omar was feeling particularly experimental (and alleged curse hanging upon the band during recording process might have had something to do with it) and in effect there's really a lot going on here. For instance you have a sound of the phone interference incorporated into "Askepios" - the story goes that Omar was so annoyed that people keep forgetting to turn off their phones before entering the studio, that he decided to keep it in the recording. The band said they used to write labyrinth-like songs in the past (in contrast to what they are doing now) and I'd say that in the context of this album and what they did earlier Ouroborous is a very simple one. As you said, you have AB-ABC-BC-DC. If you treat A and B as a whole, you basically get a classic rock-song structure. The way I see it musically is that you have a huge contrast between AB and C, they represent two sides of the spectrum with one being fast, hectic and loud, and the other slow and more focused on melody and harmony (volta-style). Then they make them come closer together: C is played with full arrangement and louder at the end, while latino-syncopated style of AB part is replaced with punctuated part D - slower, but bringing back a bit of that initial energy. In that way it musically somehow eats its own tail, at least this is how I see it. Also the C part ("Of all the warnings that you gave me...") comes back 4 times. Although the song doesn't start with it, constant repeats give it a little bit of circular character, almost as in rondo. Another thing I noticed is that the characteristic, djent-y rhythm that starts right after 4:30 mark is very similar to the one played in one of the previous tracks - Cavalettas. I don't have an idea what does it mean, but at least in the wider context of the album it doesn't come out of nowhere. One last thought - you said that you know that sometimes it's better to watch a movie more than once to really appreciate it. Maybe you should do an experiment and do a reaction to a second or third listen of one of their songs, so you actually give them a proper chance ;) Personally I don't think you would like it anyway - I mean: you seem to be quite biased at this point and tbh I can't blame you (especially with probably not the easiest song choices you had to face). But then I hear you saying that something is disjointed because you just don't seem like the contrast or sudden changes (even though you know perfectly well they will happen in TMV's music), or you feel that consecutive part of the song don't have anything in common (even if they do, but to see that in one listen is hard when the devil's in the detail such as rhythm or harmonic composition). And that's just frustrating, because what's the point of doing this over and over again if your first reaction is usually being overwhelmed and annoyed. And don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to attack or blame you, I am quite sure that this is mostly about the limitations of the form of reaction you practice and that's not your fault that sometimes it works better or worse depending on the kind of music you listen to. I wouldn't be watching (and writing essays in the comments) if I didn't like what you're doing in general ;)

[@plini856]

I can't say I enjoy the random slow sections - same as you - but I think I loved the driving sections enough that I still love it overall. They're usually a miss for me but this one's an exception

[@communionshaped]

please react to this whole album pleaseeeee

[@piscesfreak1]

I love Pridgen's drumming. I think he's why I love this album so much. I wish I could like TMV more but I can't get into their lyrics, as they seem quite nonsensical to me.

[@acomamind]

likewise in love with the drums here too. as a non-native it would be work, to understand the lyrics and i know i miss alot not doing so. but i also know that i evade the problem of urs by that^^ so i only translate songs if they really make me to, even if they could destroy my love to a song, if they are underwhelming in a certain way. i have this song on my old but still often used mp3-player and i never ever tried to understand the meaning. i created my own use for the song emotionally and what it means to me. and for that it works pretty well i guess..

[@piscesfreak1]

@@acomamind Oh yes! That's good to hear! If it speaks to you, in that way, that is great! Art is subjective, so the meaning you give to the song is the right meaning. :)

[@acomamind]

@@piscesfreak1 but if u like the drums ur maybe interested in deantoni parks appearence on their 2012 album 'noctourniquet'. in some parts i am leaving the rest aside and only focus on the drums cause they are so furiously and crazy offbeat - and i am normally a melody/athmosphere guy... but yea. there are lyrics too^^ and thx for ur words. u have the spirit

[@johnseward2934]

While I love a lot of this album, this is also the album where the to me it sounded like TMV started to lose a bit of the identity and cohesion of their previous albums. Cohesion is a funny word to use when it comes to TMV since their music on the surface can sound very discordant, but there was a shift on this one that was noticeable, that sounded like they were starting to lose their shared direction in music.

[@bachache9833]

yeah as you said at the beginning, every song is different and every album doesnt sound the same as the last. This one is very frantic and everysong hitting all possible frequencies your ear can hear lol. Not my favorite but it's cool trying to see you make sense of the craziness of the songs. Their whole discography shifts from "normal" to crazy experimental up until their most recent album. I dont know why anyone hasnt recommended deloused in the comatorium yet, imo their best and most coherent work

[@bartomiejkunda1129]

Bryan reacted to three songs from De-Loused already: Intertiatic ESP, Drunkship of Lanterns and Eriatarka.

[@robertgarside3827]

I think your apprehension with The Mars Volta comes from the simple fact that The Mars Volta writes albums, not songs. The big exception to that is the most recent album.

[@alibabaschultz352]

For me personally, this is one of my least favorite albums from them. For me, this is their "metal album". Everything is cranked up to eleven production wise, but also musically. The drums are constant. The riffs are constant. Every instrument is EQed to the max.

[@mopefiend]

This dude is always so filtered by TMV. Talking about lack of cohesion this and composition that, but never just listening to the musicianship, guitar riffs, basslines, drum fills, etc. Badass is badass, stop trying to pseudo-intellectualize things (even if that is your whole schtick).

[@ShadinCore]

24:59 you don't get it, go back to black metal 🙄

[@luidi7388]

aww too bad. this is one of their worst. the song is just a pretext to the new drummer showing off. boring. the song structure is very weak. the chorus is a pain, and it is repreated many times... you'd enjoy so much more the Agadez track... best one off the album

[@plini856]

Go back to listening to Katy Perry man