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pretentious-art-love · 1 month ago

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Alternative Versions of Frances the Mute and the Tracklist Iceberg Explained!

The Incorrect Tracklists

You know, Frances the Mute is like the bible, there are so many versions now that it is hard to tell which one is the real one. First, there is the fact that in Spotify and a lot of YouTube videos, the movements of Frances are split wrong. First the label split Cassandra in 8 parts instead of the right 5 movements.

Sometimes you will see Pour Another Icepick or Pisacis or Con Safo on Cassandra, when Cassandra has none of those movements, all those are movements of Miranda. You can notice an example of this because Con Safo is heard first at the end of Cygnus and it has its reprise on Miranda, it cannot be heard in Cassandra at all, Pour Another Icepick is the second ballad of the album, the one with the trumpets on Miranda.

If you want to know the correct order, Wikipedia has it listed as "Original track listing", or well, the supposed correct order, because there is no source regarding that section, and you can split Cassandra in several ways based on the 5 movements. The only proof we have is that the original CD tracklist with the 8 splits fit with the 5 movements if you add them up. I swear, nobody knows what the real division is, but for the sake of simplicity, let's go with Wikipedia's version for this discussion.

It goes more or less like this:

-Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus

Sarcophagi (0:44)

Umbilical Syllables (2:34)

Facilis Descensus Averni (5:26)

Con Safo (4:18)

-The Widow

The Widow (5:51)

-L'Via L'Viaquez

L'Via L'Viaquez (12:21)

-Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore

Vade Me Cum (4:17)

Pour Another Icepick (4:38)

Pisacis, Phra-Men-Ma (2:42)

Con Safo (1:32)

-Cassandra Gemini

Tarantism (0:39)

Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream (4:06)

Faminepulse (16:27)

Multiple Spouse Wounds (10:25)

Sarcophagi (0:55)

If digesting the album in each track is hard for you, perhaps contextualizing the songs in each one of its more smaller sized movements will help you understand more about which one is trying to do and pick the ones you like more easily as well as let separate your favorites from the ones you don't like. You will have to edit it yourself, though.

The missing song

But still, it doesn't end there, you see, there is a hidden title track, a track that was not released with the album.

It is said the label didn't trust them enough to make a double album, since it would make it more expensive, really, so the title track got cut (don't ask Omar, he said it was cut due to an artistic decision, and I bet he would never able to accept he had to give in to the requirements of the label), so it was later released as a single.

The title track has movements as well and they go as it goes ahead.

-Frances the Mute

In Thirteen Seconds (7:22)

Nineteen Sank, While Six Could Swim (3:34)

Five Would Grow and One Was Dead (3:40)

Normally, people add this track to the beginning since the last movements has the riffs of Sarcophagi on repeat, connecting it with Cygnus. Some people like to put it at the end after Multiple Spouse Wounds and then add the Sarcophagi reprise of Cassandra afterwards to keep Cygnus intact as the opener.

My favorite version is keeping the title track as the opener. For the people who say Cygnus is the ultimate opener, maybe it will kick you into action faster, but with the title track, the whole album becomes symmetrical. Consider it a double album, one disc has 9 songs with 45 minutes of music, and the other has 10 songs with 48 minutes of music. So everything is around the same length.

-Frances the Mute

In Thirteen Seconds (7:22)

Nineteen Sank, While Six Could Swim (3:34)

Five Would Grow and One Was Dead (3:40)

-Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus

Sarcophagi (0:44)

Umbilical Syllables (2:34)

Facilis Descensus Averni (5:26)

Con Safo (4:18)

-The Widow

The Widow (5:51)

-L'Via L'Viaquez

L'Via L'Viaquez (12:21)

Second Disc

-Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore

Vade Me Cum (4:17)

Pour Another Icepick (4:38)

Pisacis, Phra-Men-Ma (2:42)

Con Safo (1:32)

-Cassandra Gemini

Tarantism (0:39)

Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream (4:06)

Faminepulse (16:27)

Multiple Spouse Wounds (10:25)

Sarcophagi (0:55)

Even more, miranda works as a brand new introduction to the second disc just as the first movement of the title track does, one is industrial drone, other is dark ambient, both are non music type of tracks that give a creepy aura to each one of the sides of the album.

Overall, whatever version you make as long you have the title track, Frances the Mute becomes the double album it was originally intended to be…. or does it?

The restored ending

It doesn't end there. Because, you see, in my opinion, cutting the title track messed up not just the flow of the beginning of the album but also the coda of Cassandra. Some people think Cygnus is the ultimate opener, and true, it kicks and gets you into action right away, as it stands, it is stronger than the title track, but I would argue it doesn't give you the best idea of what the album is going to be, because there are interludes and ambient passages, with Frances as the first track the listener is forced to open up to weird sounds from the first second, and then get a reward after that for their patience in exploring the most abstract moments of the record, besides, there is a very crucial detail that changed everything and the reason I think the album in its released state is not the best experience.

First, the album goes in a time loop, right? It starts with Sarcophagi and it ends with Sarcophagi, right? It is a reprise of the beginning that ties everything together. And it sounds kinda neat at first… but the thing is that the transition from Multiple Spouse Wounds to Sarcophagi is super jarring and completely abrupt. And not just that, it doesn't let Cassandra properly explode, it is as if you ended the song in its bridge rather than the last final chorus reprise. All of these years I have known Frances the Mute I never quite got Cassandra Gemini ending and I considered Frances the Mute not my favorite because the pay off for half of the album, Cassandra, it is absolutely chopped off. Personally, I hate it, I hate how it ends, it just ruins the build up.

Let's go back a bit, we said that the album references the first song of the album at the beginning, right? Sarcophagi, from Cygnus, but wait, that is all wrong, the first song of the album is not Sarcophagi, or Cygnus in general, it is the Frances the Mute title track, right? So the reprise should not be Sarcophagi, but of the title track! See? It's all a conspiracy!!

Try this out, split Cassandra into its right movements, but instead of adding Sarcophagi at the end, add the last movement of the title track Frances the Mute, around the 11:11 mark, or 1:15 if you did split it. Since we do not have the stems, you will have to sync the final scream of Cedric with the drop of the title track, the way the guitar goes from major notes to minor notes will give a tape slowing down effect and the album will go back full circle from Cassandra to the climax of the first track, Frances the Mute, doing the time loop and connecting the whole album altogether exactly when Cedric sings "THIS NEVER HAPPENED".

It gets better though, you might be a bit sad having Sarcophagi reprise getting cut, right? But the truth is that it is not getting cut, at least not entirely. Since Frances the Mute was released as a single, the final 2 minutes where it sounds as if Sarcophagi repeats on the radio are left in there, but you could leave them at the end of Cassandra instead, the spooky sounds and electronics help match the ending of the album and the repeating riffs of Sarcophagi will end up referring Cygnus at the end, even if Cedric is not there. For a better transition, you could cut those last 2 minutes from the first time the title track sounds, and just fade out into Sarcophagi from Cygnus, around 12:21 if you have the full track, or 1:22 if you did split it into its third movement like I told you.

It might not sound perfect because that part has the electronics already added, and you know, we have no stems, but it will let you transition more smoothly into Cygnus/Sarcophagi as well leaving the Sarcophagi reprise for the end of the album, when everything has ended.

Isn't it oddly fitting the album loops back to the moment we are told this never happened? As if the whole record had been an illusion we just woke up from?....

As far as it goes, and with the edits I made, this is the final track list I got.

-Frances the Mute

In Thirteen Seconds (7:22)

Nineteen Sank, While Six Could Swim (3:34)

Five Would Grow and One Was Dead (1:31)

-Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus

Sarcophagi (0:44)

Umbilical Syllables (2:34)

Facilis Descensus Averni (5:26)

Con Safo (4:18)

-The Widow

The Widow (5:51)

-L'Via L'Viaquez

L'Via L'Viaquez (12:21)

-Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore

Vade Me Cum (4:17)

Pour Another Icepick (4:38)

Pisacis, Phra-Men-Ma (2:42)

Con Safo (1:32)

-Cassandra Gemini

Tarantism (0:39)

Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream (4:06)

Faminepulse (16:27)

Multiple Spouse Wounds (10:25)

Five Would Grow and One Was Dead (3:21)

Some people might have gotten used to Sarcophagi as a coda, some people, like myself, never did, so if you are one of those, I recommend you to give this track-list edit a try. In my humble experience I can't believe how better this makes the album is, it is like from earth to heaven levels of difference. It just not makes the pay off for the whole Cassandra pay off well, but also connect the album in a cohesive and dramatic, grandiose way. See? Haha! I am not crazy, you are the one that is crazy! Haha! Ha!

Oh and the mirror thing I don't really know, it is in some versions and not in others, oh well. Maybe they thought it looked dumb (it does).

#omar rodriguez lopez #experimental music #album review #cedric bixler zavala #the mars volta #progressive rock #prog rock #post hardcore #2005 #rabbit hole #frances the mute #double album #mystery #conspiracy theories

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