The Mars Volta are to release a reimagined version of last year's self-titled reunion album. Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon is scheduled to drop on April 21, seven months after the release of The Mars Volta.
Guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López started worked on the new version of the album after handing over the master tapes to The Mars Volta. With the release of the album delayed until the band were unable to tour again, he travelled to Puerto Rico to start work on a "folk" album.
“It was a fun process,” says Rodríguez-López. “And it made me think about the history of record music in the United States. There was ‘traditional music’, which became ‘Americana’, or country music. And the other genre was ‘race music’, which was exactly what it sounds like: music made by anyone who was an ‘immigrant’, mostly meaning black people. So that means everything that wasn’t ‘country’. In other words, all the interesting shit: r&b, blues, rock’n’roll, electronic music... It says a lot about this country.”
Rodríguez-López has re-orchestrated the songs, setting them to traditional Caribbean rhythms, and amplifying the latin influences that have always informed the band's sound. And he says that the resulting Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon should not be seen as "race music", but as "traditional music" from a Puerto Rican perspective.
“I realised I could finally make a record like this now, I just had to make it happen,” he says. “That was the experiment. And it was super-fun. I feel like The Mars Volta is finally beginning – that’s why the last album was self- titled, because we’ve finally stripped everything away and arrived at what the whole concept was at the beginning. And this acoustic version comes from a profound place, with its own meaning and philosophy, and its own reason for being.”
Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon can be pre-ordered from Bandcamp and Clouds Hill.
Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon tracklist
1. Blacklight Shine (acoustic)
2. Graveyard Love (acoustic)
3. Shore Story (acoustic)
4. Blank Condolences (acoustic)
5. Vigil (acoustic)
6. Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Carazon (acoustic)
7. Cerulea (acoustic)
8. Flash Burns From Flashbacks (acoustic)
9. Palm Full Of Crux (acoustic)
10. NoCaseGain (acoustic)
11. Tourmaline (acoustic)
12. Equus 3 (acoustic)
13. Collapsible Shoulders (acoustic)
14. The Requisition (acoustic)
