Frances the Mute is the second studio album by American progressive rock band The Mars Volta released in February 2005 on Gold Standard Laboratories and Universal. Produced by guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the album incorporates dub, ambient, Latin and jazz influences, and is the first to feature bassist Juan Alderete and percussionist Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez. The album also includes contributions from future saxophonist Adrián Terrazas-González, who joined the band during its subsequent tour.
Frances the Mute made multiple "Best of" lists at the end of 2005. In the Q & Mojo magazine Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came No. 18 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums"Q Classic: Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, 2005. and was also named as one of Classic Rock magazine's 10 essential progressive rock albums of the decade.Classic Rock, February 2010, Issue 141.
Background According to the initial promotional statements about Frances the Mute, the narrative behind the album was inspired by a diary found by Jeremy Ward, close friend of Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala and audio artist for The Mars Volta until his death in 2003. Ward had previously worked as a repo man, and one day he supposedly discovered an anonymous diary in the backseat of a car he was repossessing. Ward reportedly became preoccupied with the journal, and began to note similarities between his life and that of the author — most notably, that they had both been adopted. The diary told of the author's search for his biological parents, with the way being pointed by a collection of people, their names being the basis for each named track of Frances the Mute.
However, in the 2023 documentary Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird, Rodriguez-Lopez confessed that the album's concept actually came from a film script he had written and given to Bixler Zavala for inspiration as the latter was having a writer's block at the time. The story about the diary was entirely invented, as a tribute to Ward.
Writing and recording process Some of the material which would end up on Frances the Mute, including "The Widow" and "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore", pre-dated De-Loused in the Comatorium, having been originally demoed by Omar Rodríguez-López in the early days of The Mars Volta. While touring in support of De-Loused, the band would incorporate more and more extended improvisational sections into some of their songs, often trying out new ideas. Parts of "Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus" ("Facilis Descenus Averni" and "Con Safo") were first performed live in the middle of "Drunkship of Lanterns" (as heard on Live EP) and "Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt" respectively, while parts of "Cassandra Gemini" originated from improvisations during "Cicatriz ESP" (as heard on Scabdates). The album was initially to be titled Sarcophagus.
Rodríguez-López arranged and produced the recording sessions himself. Unlike De-Loused in the Comatorium, which was recorded in producer Rick Rubin's mansion, sessions for the new album took place in multiple studios, with most tracking done in what Rodríguez-López described as "a shithole… Basically a warehouse with one little air conditioner on its last legs, awful wiring and a console you couldn’t rely on". Rather than bring his ideas to the band as a whole and working them out at group rehearsals, he met individually with each player to practice each part one-on-one. "We'll sit there and play it forever and slow—real slow—to understand what's happening. It's easy to play something fast and loud, but to play it soft and slow takes a certain amount of discipline. Then once we understand the part, everyone's free to elaborate—their personalities come out and it's not my part anymore; they get into and give it that swing that I can't give it."Fader Magazine, 2005 Rodríguez-López took the additional step of recording the band member separately before layering the various tracks to create each song. Drummer Jon Theodore was the first to record his parts, and he spent time arranging and mapping out the songs with Omar and in the process figuring out what the rhythmic structures would be stated on the recording process. "This is the first time I've ever been so methodical about recording. Normally I would go into the situation with as good an idea as I could, whether that was from performing the songs on tour or having a general road map. But this was the first instance where I considered every single hit all the way through, every figure up to and including every change. There were no question marks. So when I was tracking with the metronome it was just a question of right or wrong."Modern Drummer, June 2005 Issue An exception to this recording method was the middle section of "Cassandra Gemini", edited from a lengthy jam session.
Tracking this way had a mixed reception in the band; Theodore and bassist Juan Alderete responded well to the individualistic approach while keyboard player Isaiah "Ikey" Owens didn't like it at all. However, as Rodríguez-López stated, "People filling in ideas can become tedious and counterproductive. You find yourself working backwards. When you're in the studio 'what ifs' are your biggest enemy, so my general rule is, if it's something you can't live with—if a sentence begins with 'I can't' or 'I will not'—then we examine it. But if it's 'maybe we should' or 'I think that' then it's like, hey man, full steam ahead. Not that there isn't a lot of refinement to what we do—obviously there is— but I consider it a balance of raw energy and refinement."
Frances the Mute featured the largest array of guest musicians on any Mars Volta album to date. Flea, who played bass on De-Loused in the Comatorium, this time contributed trumpet to "The Widow" and "Miranda...". "L'Via L'Viaquez" featured guitar solos from John Frusciante as well as piano solos by salsa pianist Larry Harlow, the latter a longtime hero of Rodriguez-Lopez. Rodríguez-López described the session with Harlow in Puerto Rico as "a childhood dream come true". "Cassandra Gemini" featured flute and saxophone contributions from Mexican woodwind player Adrián Terrazas-González, who would join the band full time for the subsequent tour. All the tracks also included full string and horn sections, arranged by David Campbell with the help of Rodríguez-López. According to Cedric Bixler-Zavala, while recording a section in "Cassandra Gemini" one of the orchestra members played so hard that he broke his antique bow: "And you could see his ‘classical’ side come out – like, ‘I broke this playing a fuckin’ rock song??’ He was pissed off. But I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, man, that’s on the record! You’ve got to realise things like that are cool.’”
The mixing of Frances the Mute was done by Rich Costey. According to Rodriguez-Lopez, he and Costey had to mix the entire album three different times "to get it right".
In 2012, Juan Alderete noted that Frances the Mute is the studio album he is most proud of.
Sound and lyrics Frances the Mute is comparable to The Mars Volta's 2003 release De-Loused in the Comatorium, with its cryptic lyrics and highly layered instrumentals, although the progressive rock influence is stronger on Frances the Mute than it was on De-Loused in the Comatorium. "The Widow" is notably the only short, pop-structured song on the album, although the last half of it features a lengthy, non-radio-friendly outro of manipulated tape loops of organs and electronic noise; for the single release, this part was edited out. Ambient noise plays a larger role on Frances the Mute than it does on De-Loused in the Comatorium: "Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus" ends with the recording of children's voices and passing cars (made by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez in front of the house where he used to live with Bixler-Zavala and Ward), while the first movement of "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" ("Vade Mecum") features 4 minutes of coquí frogs (credited as "The Coquí of Puerto Rico" on the album sleeve) singing while a thick soundscape is slowly built from guitars, synthesizers and Bixler-Zavala's voice.
According to Rodriguez-Lopez, "Miranda..." was influenced by the music from western movies: "I'm a big fan of spaghetti-western and I think it shows on "Miranda". Our Morricone-influence has always been there, but on "Miranda" we let it all out. The last song ["Non-Zero Possibility"] on the last At the Drive-In album, the best thing we ever did by the way, had touches of spaghetti-western."
The fifth and final song of the album, "Cassandra Gemini", clocking at 32 minutes and 32 seconds is to date the longest studio song released by The Mars Volta. Rodriguez-Lopez said of the song: "Ever since I was a teenager, and had various listening experiences with the likes of King Crimson, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, I've always wanted to do something like "Cassandra". Something deformed and out of control. Something enormous and violent, a whole album fitted into one composition. Something ruthless that no one can remain careless to."needs citation
Regarding the album's lyrical content, vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala stated:
Release history In December 2004, a full copy of Frances the Mute was leaked to the Internet from the vinyl version. The rip was of poor quality. Encoded as a 96 kbit/s MP3, other versions were reencoded to 192 kbit/s WMA from the source mp3, resulting in even worse audio quality. Gold Standard Laboratories issued a statement decrying the Internet release for its subpar sound quality, and suggesting that fans should respect the band's request not to share the leaked music.
Frances the Mute was released on February 11, 2005 in Japan and February 21, 2005 in Europe; the US release followed on midnight, March 1, 2005. The Japanese version included a bonus DVD with three videos from the band's live performance at the Electric Ballroom, London in 2003 as well as an audio of non-album track "Frances the Mute". Gold Standard Laboratories issued two vinyl versions of the album, a standard 3-LP set on black vinyl, and a limited-edition 4-LP set printed on glow-in-the-dark vinyl and packaged in a red plastic case; the fourth disc was a bonus 12" featuring "Frances the Mute" and a live acoustic version of "The Widow", recorded at The Wiltern, Los Angeles on May 6, 2004. A CD single featuring the same two tracks was given free with the purchase of the album at Best Buy stores in the US.
Frances the Mute sold over 100,000 copies within the first week of release, and debuted at number four on the Billboard Album Charts. As of February 2007 according to Nielsen SoundScan, 488,000 copies were sold in the United States. The album was the band's career best at No. 4 until their fourth album The Bedlam in Goliath came out almost 3 years later on the Billboard 200 at No. 3. The album was certified gold by the RIAA in the US for shipments of 500,000 albums on October 5, 2009.
In 2008, the edited version of "L'Via L'Viaquez" was featured on the video game Guitar Hero: World Tour.Guitar Hero: World Tour Set List
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