Fat Ninja

Music has always been a subject of much passion for me. Its sinuous ties to memory and experience have and will always be a marvel. I know I’ve mentioned all of this before, but I think I can honestly say that music almost makes time travel possible. Just the other night, I was lying in bed, preparing for the onset of sleep, while listening to Peter Gabriel’s Passion, and for a second it triggered such vivid memories that I honestly felt as though I were reliving them.

Granted, this was only in the span of a mere synapsis, but it was so real, that it seemed an eternity. In the wake of it, my mind kind of fumbled around in its own darkness, trying to capture the experience once more; as though to re-experience and better understand it. But it was gone, slipping away into the recesses of my subconscious as quickly as it surfaced.

Needless to say, I have a profound respect for good music, and particularly for those who have harnessed the capacity to create it and mold it. Since working at Yahoo! there’s been a massive expansion of my musical horizons. I’ve come across many artists and musicians whom I may very well have overlooked in other circumstances.

I suppose if there’s one recent discovery that has had the largest impact on me, it would be the Mars Volta (Sorry, they’re working on a new site). While it’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is about them that I find so inspiring and so incredibly fulfilling on an emotional and spiritual level, I can say that I consider them to be one of the most talented groups of musicians in my aural canon.

It’s just so rare that you come across musicians and song writers that truly strive to push any kind of envelope with what they put out there. So many artists seem to give up their vision for the payroll, selling out to the lowest common denominator, and never really looking to reach that next plateau. Don’t get me wrong here; I understand that you have to make a living. But that doesn’t mean you have to forfeit talent and integrity. And it doesn’t mean that you have to continue to lower the bar.

As a listener who looks for depth and the realization of music’s full potential in an album, it’s easy to become jaded, surrender your standards, and go with the status quo. Fortunately, when all hope seems lost, musicians like the Mars Volta manage to pick up the banner once more and fend off the forces of mediocrity and the mundane.

In attempting to describe what I love about them, I find it’s really difficult simply because their music transcends definition. It spans the breadth of so many different genres but never seems to be meandering in its own self-exploration. It plays out as a heartfelt expression of all of the artistic influences in the musicians’ lives; paying tribute to their forerunners.

But it’s far more than a simple borrowing of other genres and styles. It’s the taking of these many parts and not only fusing them together into a very solid and beautiful whole, but also infusing and imprinting them with a unique signature and making them their own; it’s embracing the old and making something new of it.

Every track spills over with so much passion that you couldn’t possibly squeeze another drop of emotion from it. You almost don’t want to accept it, for fear that the spring will run dry. But it always manages to sustain itself for the length of the album, as each track bleeds into the next, creating an almost organic expression I’ve not really found in any other artist.

It’s bands like the Mars Volta that restore my faith in music, and I think their influence will be felt for years to come. Their music offers a candid glimpse of the landscape of ideas and limitless horizons that is art; a place of imagination and intellect alike. My only hope is that I manage to catch one of their live shows.

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