''Cryptomnesia'' is the debut studio album by El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez, released on May 5, 2009. The album is the first of three albums recorded by the band, and is Rodriguez-Lopez' eleventh record overall. According to Rodriguez-Lopez, the album was "recorded in the summer of 2006, around the same time I did '' Old Money''. It was a very, very fun record to make. I made that record in five or six days."

Background

The band features

Omar Rodríguez-López Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López (born September 1, 1975) is an American guitarist and songwriter. He has formed or played in several bands, including the Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, Antemasque, and Bosnian Rainbows. He was the bassist for the ...

on guitar,

Zach Hill Zachary Charles Hill (born December 28, 1979) is an American multi-instrumentalist and visual artist. He is best known as the drummer and co-producer of the groups Death Grips and the I.L.Y's, and as the drummer of math rock band Hella. Art In ...

(

Hella ''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. It is possibl ...

) on drums, Jonathan Hischke (Hella) on synth bass, and

Juan Alderete Juan Alderete de la Peña (born September 5, 1963) is an American musician, best known as the longtime bassist of Racer X, the Mars Volta and Marilyn Manson. Biography Alderete was born in Los Angeles, California the fourth of five children. ...

(

The Mars Volta The Mars Volta is an American progressive rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership for ...

) on bass guitar. Additionally, Cryptomnesia features the vocals of guest frontman

Cedric Bixler-Zavala Cedric Bixler-Zavala (born November 4, 1974) is an American singer and songwriter. He is the lead singer and lyricist of the progressive rock band The Mars Volta and the only constant member of the post-hardcore group At the Drive-In, for whic ...

on nine of the album's eleven tracks. Rodriguez-Lopez completed the album in 2006, shortly after finishing The Mars Volta's ''

Amputechture ''Amputechture'' is the third studio album by American progressive rock band the Mars Volta, released on September 12, 2006, on Gold Standard Laboratories and Universal Records. Produced by guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the album ...

''. Bixler-Zavala's vocals were tracked in summer of 2008. Regarding the release, Cedric Bixler-Zavala states: "if anyone's bummed that ''

Octahedron In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...

'' is too simple or too pop, they can buy

his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, in ...

album and it'll take them right back to that eavierkind of sound. It's one of my favourite things I've ever worked on. It's pretty much a Mars Volta record, just without Thomas ridgen Ikey wens and Marcel odriguez-Lopez" A special limited advance vinyl offering of only 3,000 copies was made available exclusively to indie retail in honor of Record Store Day on April 18 and saw its official release on CD, vinyl, and digital everywhere on May 5, 2009. The album was made available for pre-order from hellomerch.com on April 8. In the liner notes of the album, Omar states:

To soothe the symptoms of a cursed go-between, this magnetar of a record (an uncomfortable meditation on bad manners), was recorded in the foul summer of 2006. It then sat in my grotesquely overpopulated, roman holiday of a closet, awaiting its vocal tracks, which were finally realized in the illustrious Australian summer of 2008. Being predisposed to insults, I would like to say now that I love this record with all my guts and find it very much worth the wait (I hope you'll agree, though I sense some of you may not). This project, as many before it, though one small step in my (our) personal therapy, still bears the question: is our footing sure enough to be trusted?

Track listing

Personnel

* Omar Rodriguez Lopez –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

s, keys *

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Cedric Bixler Zavala Cedric Bixler-Zavala (born November 4, 1974) is an American singer and songwriter. He is the lead singer and lyricist of the progressive rock band The Mars Volta and the only constant member of the post-hardcore group At the Drive-In, for which ...

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

– bass * Jonathan Hischke – synth bass

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cryptomnesia (Album) 2009 albums El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez albums Omar Rodríguez-López albums