I’m inclined to think of Omar Rodriguez as the first official ORL solo record, even though that’s not technically correct. And yet, my predilection for proving myself to be the best kind of correct is overridden when I consider a couple of fact[…]

Labelling music as ‘psychedelic’ is about as useful as labelling it as ‘progressive’. Both are wildly subjective terms, and both are frequently deployed when defining Omar Rodríguez-López’s extensive catalogue. I’d like to see a handy […]

Friends, this year is going to be a doozy, one which will require mental fortitude on par with the strength of Hercules combined with the flexibility of Gumby. And yet there’s only much loin-girding a person can reasonably do, so instead I’m dete[…]

This is not my best-loved time of year: it’s cold, dark and tainted by too many unhappy holiday memories. All the decorations remind me of when I was very young, and how I dreaded the annual construction of our plastic fir tree, anticipating my dad[…]

If I really wanted to – and I don’t – I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the first knell sounded shortly after t[…]

Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo shares many similarities with A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume I in that both are atmospheric, mostly instrumental filmic albums. However, unlike the latter, Se Dice isn’t technically a soundtrack; the liner notes a[…]

Despite being six years into this project, I have yet to review A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume One, Omar Rodríguez-López’s debut solo album, which was released twenty years ago today (no Sergeant references: denied). Sadly, neither the fil[…]

You would expect an artist often designated (or perhaps saddled) with the ‘progressive’ label to continually evolve and reinvent themselves, and in this respect Omar Rodríguez-López has not disappointed. Over his decades-long career he’s upen[…]

On paper, Some Need It Lonely should be exactly what I want in an ORL record. Personnel is broadly made up of Mars Volta musicians, plus Teri Gender Bender on most lead vocals. The fact that this line-up features a broad range of Volta drummers, from[…]

I’ve been refining the criteria for the perfect work soundtrack over the past few years of work from home as standard and have narrowed the requirements accordingly. Anything with lyrics is too prone to distraction, and while binaural beats are oka[…]