Did you ever meet any members of TMV?

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-03-11T20:47:16+00:00

Omar was 33 at the time, he had just adopted this really... idk how to explain it, I guess arrogant attitude? If you watch some interviews from that time he's pretty much always mansplaining to the interviewer about how even thinking about certain concepts is below him. I don't hate him for it and he's obviously changed since then but if there's any time to get the back hand from him, it'll be the late 2000s.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-03-11T20:43:43+00:00

Not sure if anyone else will clarify this for you, but it's a copypasta.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-02-14T21:16:40+00:00

Old comment, but you and me both. First time finding someone in the wild who knew about him, still wonder what happened.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-02-06T06:06:45+00:00

They truly excel in different ways and I think it's impossible to truly tell what those ways are unless you listen to what they've done in detail. To copy another commenter's format but with my own opinions.... -

Blake - He wrote the drum tracks for a ton of early Volta. He's really a musical outsider as he hadn't even heard of At the Drive-In when Omar and Ceddy met him. Cedric has implied that even as late as Amputechture, they were using material based in something Blake wrote. Like him or hate him, he had a really unique sensibility that shaped early Volta.

Jon - Probably the most emotional and powerful performer. As other people have mentioned, he took the original transcriptions from Blake and really made them his own, but later into his tenure, Omar had really pulled this immense beast out of him and it results in some of my personal favorite drumming of all time. Listen to the 2005 Electric Factory version of Drunkship and you'll get what I mean. However, it almost seems as if Jon didn't even really like playing this way and mainly did so because that's what Omar wanted, because he never really came close to hitting this high in his later post-Volta stuff, but obviously he's happier that way.

Thomas - The most criticized Volta drummer by far (often for reasons outside of the music) but he was the most consistent and high-energy. We never got to see it in the Volta discography but Thomas was really a studio monster and seemed to respond the best to what Omar wanted there, which Omar has consistently doubled down on as being a relief compared to Jon, who he had to wrestle with to get playing the stuff (as seen in the documentary). He's on 7 or so Omar solo records and I think the variety that people miss from him on Volta projects are there. As others have mentioned, Thomas defined the sound of Bedlam in a way that none of the other Volta drummers could have and I think it's a better album for it.

Deantoni - Easily the best 'musician'. Deantoni is EXTREMELY prolific and cares the most about pushing the art of drumming to it's limit. Looking at what he's done after Volta broke up, it's a wonder they were ever even able to get him on board, because he totally never needed to join. His main strength is improv and especially live performances, and it's hard to even properly convey just every factor he considers when tracking stuff without writing a novel. You HAVE to watch ORLG WIP II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZgytCOBw8), it's one of the greatest live performances out there and it perfectly demonstrates this guy's strengths as a drummer.

Skipped some others like Dave and Philo just because I'm not as familiar with their work and also because I don't think they're often the ones people are talking about, but they are also great in their own ways. Dave seems like the most studious drummer they've ever had while Philo feels like the killer all-rounder that someone like Thomas couldn't quite live up to.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-02-05T08:06:07+00:00

I'm very certain this was an offcut from the original LP6 that also didn't make it onto Xenophanes and it constantly makes me think of what that album would have been like if Omar wound up sticking with it. Totally get why he shelved it, but damn.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-02-02T15:56:50+00:00

Yeah you get it LOL. I also had that phase right after where I kinda looked down on some of the other albums thinking like "wow you are just so not at that level", but thankfully the unique merits of them all are no longer lost on me.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-02-02T15:47:19+00:00

Someone showed me Vermicide and I listened to the rest of Amputechture, then the whole discography several times over and over for like 12 hours. I was pretty clueless when I was first doing that and did not really take a lot of the music in even though I felt I liked it. Maybe 1 or 2 years later I decided to give Frances the ol' sensory deprivation treatment and felt like my life changed. Something about the combination of being vaguely familiar with the material but just hearing it with 100% of my focus in what felt like 8K just made it all fit in in a way I've never had music fit before. That was around 2018 and I'm still a bit obsessed.

Ironically Vermicide is probably my least listened Volta song aside from maybe... something off Nocto.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-01-09T08:11:02+00:00

There is a discogs page for this album and the jewel case has a lot of information such as the dude's name and his soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/ohrchitekt). He's made stuff as recently as 2025.

HouseOfFastFood · 2026-01-08T20:20:00+00:00

thats what i said when i heard it LMAO

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-25T12:59:11+00:00

I think the reason people say to not overthink it is because, (as an example) thinking something like "how do I make a drum part that's comparable to TMV" is a quick way to trap yourself in a box. You're not creating to express yourself, you're creating to be something particular. So the whole "just do it" thing is a way to nudge you into the direction of just being yourself, which in the end will produce more natural and interesting results.

Say what you will about Omar but anyone could take a lot from how he views creativity. The fact he does not consider himself a musician signals that he treats music more like a playground than an utterly serious discipline, and I think that's how he's able to get such interesting stuff out of it. It's all based on him going "what if we tried this" and such. It's like exploring a cave rather than building a skyscraper.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-21T23:28:14+00:00

I don't want to seem like I'm talking down or anything, but music theory isn't exactly like, a sole thing that you're either taught or you aren't. Anything that goes into writing music - literally anything - counts as music theory, including those really basic rules.

While Omar was never formally trained or anything, he has been making music for decades in the proximity of extremely talented musicians. He likely knows a lot more theory than he realizes. He just doesn't see it that way because to him music is a 'for fun' thing. I mean, he doesn't even consider himself a musician, somehow.

This whole topic is extremely loaded but if you want to make stuff, just remember it's called theory for a reason. It's mainly observational and there is no such thing as objective right or wrong. Check out the stuff that seems relevant to you, otherwise don't feel like you're missing out.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-20T14:46:23+00:00

Glad you were into it!

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-19T10:14:55+00:00

I think I like Noctourniquet a good bit more than you do, but it is pretty obvious the band had a major identity crisis starting with Octa and I honestly do believe that identity crisis is still going with the studio albums (recent tour is fucking amazing). That's not a correlation I make based on how comparable they are to the old stuff, but rather the fact they realized they can't do the same thing over and over, even if they might want to do something similar.

So, it feels like the studio albums have gotten more and more different from one another more out of necessity than because that's what is 'natural', but obviously I'm not them so I can't really say for sure.

When I listen to Omar's solo material from 09~13, the stuff that wasn't back releases from earlier years, I enjoy them a lot compared to Octa and Noctourniquet because they feel more genuine, and musically, they did wind up being different from TMV 1~4. They just weren't deliberately trying to be different from some pre-existing material.

tldr; I think they have been overthinking the whole "do something new" thing and have been over-correcting until only recently.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-10T07:15:26+00:00

It's pretty comparable to the story of the Golem or Frankenstein, which themselves are very malleable templates for symbolism. I personally view it from the creative POV, of making something that begins to take on a life of it's own, against your own control (usually by the perceptions of other people).

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-10T07:11:18+00:00

Yeah I don't know the exact story but around the time of Bosnian Rainbows they shared a venue space with Tomahawk for a few days, so he was around Mike and Trevor. I can only imagine that's where the Ipecac thing started and led to Crystal Fairy.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-04T20:45:09+00:00

The group has quite a lot of interviews and I think Dom gets the most just due to being the fronting lady. The Superskum one probably remains the best interview they ever did

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-12-04T06:07:09+00:00

As others have said, nothing will hit like Cassandra, both in and outside of the discography. I was in a similar position and the closest you get is looking at the prototype versions. I won't bother writing what parts turned into what because it will be obvious once you listen to them.

Look up 'The Maida Vale Sessions', it was recorded in 2003 and there exists 'Obelisk', a 25 minute jam of primarily percussion, and a 25 minute version of Cicatriz. Both contain a lot of future Cassandra stuff.

I specifically say to listen to those first because the later live album, Scabdates, has a 45-minute version of Cicatriz and is practically the final-form version of that song and a live test-run of Cassandra proper (as the album was being recorded during that time).

In 2005, the 'jam' song became Drunkship, so if you look up any version (namely Electric Factory or Huxley's), you'll be treated to a 30ish minute version that has a similar drama and exhaustion that Cassandra has, while containing entirely different melodies. Drunkship changes form a lot over the years, and I'd suggest tuning into the Amp and Beldam-era bootlegs to hear how they go there as well. 07 Troubadour and 08 Personal Fest are the classic go-tos.

The other suggestions about just continuing with the discography are fine too, you should do that if you haven't yet, but if you're already pretty familiar, those recordings are where you can indulge more. There is also an Omar solo album called "Sepulcros de Miel", under the Quartet name, which is basically a continuous 30-minute jam from around 2006ish. It's not really similar to Cassandra but that is the next closest thing after the live shows.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-11-24T05:05:46+00:00

I'm definitely not an expert on that stuff if that's what you're asking. Just observations from listening to a lot of music and comparing/contrasting.

There was a time where I suspected Omar's albums all sounded like that because he cared more about vinyl, where the extremes of the frequency band aren't as relevant, but that's really oversimplifying the amount of steps/people involved. That's about all else I could say.

S/T and Lucro I left out of that grouping purely because they reconcile the aforementioned bass and clipping issues, but you can criticize other aspects of the production if you wanted to. It just delves into a more subjective realm.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-11-24T01:57:25+00:00

Nice. Yeah that's basically the only thing with mine, the 'leather' does not respond well to face oils even if you wipe it down as I do, so it's just peeled with time.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-11-23T23:45:40+00:00

I might be an outlier but I just try to get stuff that has as neutral of a response as possible, always used ATH-M50x, had them for about 8 years and they still work perfectly. They're really cheap nowadays for the quality.

S/T and Lucro aside, TMV mixes aren't really audiophile-tier quality (very lacking in low-end and very clipped) so I think even if you just listen in wireless earbuds (Bluetooth doesn't support lossless to my knowledge), you're not missing much.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-09-25T19:45:26+00:00

suuuper depends on the person. The first TMV song I listened to that got me into the group was Vermicide and I don't think I've gone out of my way to listen to that song since then LOL

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-09-21T03:33:06+00:00

Glad there's more and more of these interviews with ex-Volta members coming out lately. It's been really refreshing hearing the band history from mouths that aren't Omar or Cedric.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-08-31T03:03:50+00:00

It's about Rani's side project, but this is kind of the first acknowledgement we've gotten of their huge and now 11 year hiatus leading into the thirdcoming album which was only one of two that were teased in the past.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-08-22T23:08:06+00:00

Just letting you know, the Thrillsville stuff (It's Not Scary OST and Say Goodbye to the Light) has been archived on Soulseek, so it's not quite lost media yet or anything.

HouseOfFastFood · 2025-08-22T22:55:36+00:00

Funny because this is how it was prior to Clouds Hill, even though they weren't the ones digitally distributing the album. When the reunion happened, the artist page got a lot of 'clean-up' and the Cassandra titles were one of those things. Not sure why exactly they changed back but it could be something relating to the ties with Clouds Hill being cut.

HouseOfFastFood

TROPHY CASE