Recondite

Japanese edition with bonus track.
The Mars Volta have never taken the easy route. Their sixth album since Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala quit seminal post-hardcore outfit At The Drive-In in 2001, ‘Noctourniquet’ is framed around a narrative based both on Superman villain Solomon Grundy and the Greek myth of Hyacinthus. If you need refreshing, that’s the one in which Hyacinth, the (male) lover of the god Apollo, attempts to impress Apollo by catching his discus, but gets struck by it and dies. The music follows the same recondite, abstruse path as the lyrics - an ambitious, avant-garde swirl of prog, rock, post-rock and quasi-metal that carries the weight of such intense cerebral pressure…

The unconventional quartet of Amir Abadi (aka Dr. Atmo), Ingo Schnorrenberg, Michael Pagenstedt and former Tuxedomoon vocalist Blaine L. Reininger - having previously collaborated as Falling Infinities - returned in 1994 as U V O I I for the equally idiosyncratic Sound of Heaven, issued on the venerable Fax +49-69/450464 label headed by Pete Namlook. Atmo brings a strong ethnic rhythmic sensibility, whilst Schnorrenberg and Pagenstedt set the otherworldly, yet distinctly digital, atmosphere. Unusually for FAX, there are vocals here - Reininger recites his recondite and surrealistic poetry, as well as strained howls and some gorgeous violin contributions. Undeservedly underrated.

In the 41 - year gap between these two sonatas Fauré, increasingly beset by deafness, withdrew into a more private, recondite world all his own. The Second, in consequence, has never enjoyed the popularity of the First—and in fact was conspicuous by its absence from the CD catalogue until this welcome new release. Collectors may recall that when Lydia Mordkovitch and Gerhard Oppitz recorded the First for Chandos they preferred to couple it with Richard Strauss's early Sonata in E flat. Comparison of the two teams in the A major Sonata, Op. 13, leaves me in no doubt that the newcomers would be my first choice. In saying that, I don't want to underestimate Mordkovitch. But with her fine-spun, silken tone and sensitively tapered phrasing she is far too often overpowered by Oppitz, who in the resonant acoustic of St Luke's Church, Chelsea, emerges not only too loud but also rather too often the victim of his own over-generously used right pedal. The Cologne venue accorded to Mintz and Bronfman is kinder: though anything but timid Bronfman preserves far greater textural clarity, and never allows his piano to outweigh Mintz's violin unless at the composer's own behest.(Gramophone, 1/1988)