LSTN #12: el trio de omar rodriguez lopez

This review, according to the blog Sugar The Pill, says it best: "Omar Rodríguez-López is perhaps best known as being the former guitarist for At The Drive-In and current guitarist for post-prog free-jazz/rock weirdos The Mars Volta. Depending on how you count, this is either his fifteenth solo outing, or his first as the incarnation of ‘El Trío…’.
According to my rusty Spanish, the title translates as ‘The Science of the Useless’ – but alas, my language skills are not what they could be. And herein lies the problem with reviewing this album – it is, as you may have guessed, sung entirely in Spanish (Mexican singer/songwriter/actress Ximena Sariñana provides vocals and Aaron Cruz double bass to Rodríguez-López on acoustic guitar).

One gets so used to hearing music in English that it’s easy to forget that there are, in fact, other languages. Of course it is one of the triumphs of linguistic imperialism that by default we (and yes, dear reader, I include you in my ignorance) come to expect songs to be sung in English. But equally there is an understanding issue – would Pulp or The Smiths be the same without their wryly observant words? Would the Manics be able to get away with Marxist sloganeering if they were deprived of their lyrical power?

These are rhetorical questions that I suspect I’ll never answer to my satisfaction (although if anyone knows of a French version of The Smiths I’d love to hear them). By way of conceptual comparison, listening to this LP is a lot like listening to Super Furry Animals Welsh-language effort Mwng. It is a marvelous piece of work on its own terms, whether you understand the words or not. Naturally in the Age of Google™ it would be easy enough to get a translation, but who wants to be reading the words while listening to the music?

Ciencia de los Inútiles is a sparse, intimate, sometimes harrowing collection of songs to listen to. Ximena Sariñana’s delicately accented vocals provide a sublime counterpoint to Rodríguez-López’ finger-picked guitar (have a listen to ‘Lunes’ below to see what I mean). It’s mostly a relaxed affair, with jazz basslines making an appearance now and again (‘Martes’) and on ‘Viernes’ a waterfall adds a tropical flavour to the dusty dry atmospherics. The instrumental track ‘Sabado’ has a distinctly middle eastern feel to it, but ironically it’s the songs with vocals that have a more stirring quality."

Listen with me: Miercoles

Listen with me: Lunes