Ocathedron is the fifth album from The Mars Volta an rock band from Los Angles that defy easy description. They were clearly influenced by Led Zeppelin but this influence was filtered through there own psychotic mix of Latin American music, psychedelia, punk rock, heavy guitar music, Jazz and their own brand of relentless aggression. The product of this chaotic blend of styles resulted in truly unique music that brought a fresh energy to rock.
Octahedron documents the band turning away extended song forms to write shorter pieces that are all part of a greater conceptual unity. The band were blessed with an excellent selection or drummers throughout their career. Octahedron featuring the force that is Thomas Pridgen, his aggressive playing style jelled well with the band’s aesthetic. Although, it must be said that he is not my favourite drummer of the band’s roster.

Octahedron was the first album from The Mars Volta I ever owned what impressed me about this release was the sheer diversity of music presented in the album and how much sonic ground was covered in such short songs. New territory is explored here especially on the haunting track With Twilight as My Guide which exists in a very ethereal place and does not as in previous go to a more conventional high energy space. The song showcases Cedric Bixler Zavala’s incredible vocal range.

What the meaning of this album is meant to be is as with all of the bands’ output hard to decipher. I have heard that the track Teflon is about a group of dropouts and stoners killing the American presidential candidate John McCain in a possible future where he would have become president. Throughout the album there are various references the occult/and or Satanic powers (it should be noted that Zavala has sought to distance himself from such interpretations of the music).

To state the obvious, there are eight songs in total on the album which coincides with the geometrical figure that is named in the title. It is hard to say if this name denotes any further significance. Throughout, the album a synthesized tones makes frequent appearances, functioning as a sonic glue between the individual songs. For a band that is notoriously inaccessible and hard to interpret this album for all its aggression, lyrical density and extreme aesthetic Octahedron can still be said to be the band’s most “commercial” release when compared the rest of their catalogue. This is more telling of the strangeness of The Mars Volta than of the contents of Octahedron.

For surely it is their undeniable strangeness that has given them the success and enduring popularity they have enjoyed. In their music unfiltered aggression meets sophistication and abstraction. An event I was at with one of their members was very well attended, which happened long after the band had disbanded.

When I think of The Mars Volta I feel a mixture of elation and sorrow: elation at the music I am hearing but at the same time sadness that I cannot think of a band that has achieved any level of notoriety in recent years that is a innovative as they were. Perhaps my sorrow is simply due to ignorance. I would prefer this to be true rather than any alternative hypothesis. That good new music is simply being lost in the incomprehensible volume of new releases each year? That originality can no longer prosper in the music “industry”? In the darkness of the unknown false certainty will not help us. To live with ambiguity is sometimes a necessity.

Black Market is my favorite album by Weather Report who were primarily a Jazz band but were also know from bringing influences from many other genres into there music. They are seen by many as one of the progenitors of “Fusion” music. Which I think is a completely useless term for the simple reason that there is no such thing as “pure” music. If you go far back enough all culture has at all times been influenced by something from outside itself or a combination with something other.

Regardless, Black Market is a concise and powerful work that had a strong impact on me as teenager. I think the reason that this album had a such a strong impact on me was the flawless bass playing by Jaco Pastorious on tracks 2 and 6 (Alphonso Johnson is on bass for the rest of the album). It has been said many times but bares repeating, Jaco Pastorius was a genius who completely changed the was bass guitar was played forever. He was the pioneer of fretless bass and one of the few electric bass players to have a deep understanding of Jazz.

In addition, he invented several techniques that had never been attempted on the instrument prior. On top of these monumental talents he was a strong composer who would go on to write many of Weather Report’s best music. He was also decent drummer and had a functional understanding of the piano. He was one of the rare people that nature freely gifted incredible abilities. To this day he still represents the highest standard a bass player can aspire to. As far as I can tell, none have.

As impressive as Pastorius was what captivated me just as much was the music. There was a unique chemistry between this iteration of Weather Report which was never replicated in future lineups. One of the joys of this album and the band in general is the complete absence of guitar in the music. The space this leaves allows the keyboard and bass to have more room to play. It must be said that some of the playing on this album is simply outrageous.

All this said, the contribution of Alphonso Johnson should not be ignored. For a long time I thought Pastorius played bass on the whole album. It was only later that I learned that there were two bass players featured here. Johnson’s playing has often been ignored by the bass community whilst Pastorius is endlessly celebrated, I think this is unfair. Both players were masters of their respective styles. In certain moods I even prefer the playing of Johnson over Pastorius as sometimes Pastorius’s approach could be too dominant and overbearing, especially in a live context. His tone was often (although not always) very bright and strident occasionally it can feel fatiguing and oppressive to listen to. By contrast Johnson had a far darker tone which felt to me at times more supportive of the music, it never felt dictatorial.

With hindsight it must be said that Weather Report’s career represents the high water mark of Jazz being successful in the mainstream. In later eras this was never recaptured. As much as all the musicians in the band were highly accomplished players they did not use their talents at the expense of the emotional aspects of music. What musicians gain in ability can often be lost in sensitivity, simplicity and patience. At their best Weather Report charted territory through new emotional spaces that none of their contemporaries were able to achieve. This is particularly evident on the Gibraltar where the band explores a dark mood with a sense of foreboding at the start of the piece, later moving into an a funk feel.

Later on, all the members of band featured in Black Market with exception of Shorter and Zawinul left the band. Eventually both of them parted ways and went on to have successful solo careers. As much good music happened in their later lives I will always hold the work they did in this band as my favorite of their achievements. It is a truth music history has shown again and again: great artist work best in collaboration. It is in the chemistry that occurs through a meeting of minds that the greatest magic can happen.

Solo albums are impressive in so far as they display a singularity of vision and the execution of that vision but are rarely as strong as those produced in collaboration.

The Raven That Refused To Sing is Steven Wilson’s mature masterpiece. By this point in his career he had already achieved so much as the leader of Porcupine Tree as well working as part of numerous other projects. Whilst his solo ventures prior to The Raven… impressed me it with this album that he really hit his stride as a solo artist.

The musicians who play on this album are all of the highest calibre (Marco Mineman, Guthrie Govan, Nick Beggs, Adam Holzman). What is so impressive about the album is that whilst all of the musicians are strong players with dazzling abilities, they approach the music with maturity and taste, never overplaying and always leaving space for the whole band to shine. No one’s ego is served at the expense of the material.

This album is one of the few examples of a work that draws from a wide variety of influences whilst at the same time remain cohesive. What unites the material is Steven Wilson’s consummate taste at unique compositional style. What is the this style? Wilson has a reputation for writing emotionally dark material. The lyrics speak of murder, loss and despair. Musically Wilson often uses abrupt transitions in songs to shock the listener, the most obvious example of this being the end of Watchmaker were tenderness turns into brutality. He freely mixes simple songs with highly complex structures that are symphonic in scope.

Stylistically there an incredible range and combination of different influences metal, jazz and rock are all present to different degrees. One of the aspects of music that fascinated me was Nick Begg’s playing. He can be considered in his approach and sound the inheritor of Chris Squire’s legacy. For the obvious reason that he plays with a pick and plays with a distorted tone. Less obviously, the bass often takes a very prominent place in the music which was always true of Squire’s band Yes. Further, The Raven… represents the most successful attempt to reinvent and modernize the musical vocabulary that some of the stranger rock bands in the 60s and 70s used. Whilst element of the past can be heard there is a startling freshness to The Raven… which in a genre that is mired in cliché this album stands in a category by itself.

If my house were burning down this CD would have to be saved.