Cryptomnesia

The music for Cryptomnesia was recorded in the Summer of 2006, allegedly around the time Old Money was being made, with the vocals being recorded in 2008.  The album consists of small segments of larger improvisations or jam sessions that were stitched together in editing.  Initially it was stated that three albums would be made from these sessions, but to this date only one was ever released.  Cryptomnesia was the first album to be released through Sargent House, and Omar’s first album to be released on Record Store Day (3,000 copies).  It was promoted as an antithesis to Octahedron, with Cedric stating:

“if anyone’s bummed that The Mars Volta record’s too simple or too pop, they can buy that album and it’ll take them right back to that kind 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, Ikey, and Marcel. With Volta [Octahedron] was just our acoustic record that turned into our pop record.”

The liner notes state:

“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?”

“A self-caricature: what would an album that plays with the expectations people have of an artist sound like?” – Clouds Hill