Background

On a trip in Jerusalem, Rodriguez-Lopez purchased an archaic ouija-type talking board at a curio shop as a gift for Bixler-Zavala. They would return to their tour bus after shows to play with it during their 2006 tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as it quickly became the band's post-show ritual.^[7] Dubbed "The Soothsayer", the board revealed stories, gave names and made demands, as the band was contacted by three different people who appeared in the form of one, who was then referred to as "Goliath". The more the band interacted with "The Soothsayer", otherworldly coincidences began plaguing the band's experience writing and recording The Bedlam in Goliath: Blake Fleming, their drummer at the time, quit mid-tour and left the band with financial troubles; Bixler-Zavala wound up needing surgery performed on his foot due to the shoes he had been wearing, forcing him to relearn how to walk post-surgery;^[7] audio tracks sporadically disappeared from the studio's harddrives; Rodriguez-Lopez's home studio flooded and was subject to multiple power outages; and the album's original engineer went through a nervous breakdown, leaving behind all previous work with no notes as to where anything was.^[8] The engineer who quit stated to Rodriguez-Lopez: "I'm not going to help you make this record. You're trying to do something very bad with this record, you're trying to make me crazy and you're trying to make people crazy."^[9]

Rodriguez-Lopez was on the brink of starting the recording from scratch, but eventually kept on after recruiting Robert Carranza as a replacement engineer, along with assistance from Lars Stalfors and Isaiah Abolin. Midway through the recording sessions, Rodriguez-Lopez broke "The Soothsayer" in half and buried it in an undisclosed location as an attempt to undo the curse and halt the unforeseen tragedies. Rodriguez-Lopez swore never to give away the location of the burial, and also asked the band not to speak of it again during the remainder of the album's production.^[7]

The song "Soothsayer" contains field recordings that Omar recorded in Jerusalem. The recordings are a mixture from the Jewish quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Christian Quarter.^[10]

Recording process

Recorded and mixed at Ocean Way Studios in Hollywood and Rodriguez-Lopez's home studio in Brooklyn, New York, song material for The Bedlam in Goliath dates back to April 2006 when demos were first written.^[11] Without a stable studio drummer after the three consecutive losses of Jon Theodore, Blake Fleming and Deantoni Parks in a single year, the band was introduced to then 24-year-old Thomas Pridgen, whose youthful presence—as described by Bixler-Zavala—had given The Mars Volta new life.^[12] Rodriguez-Lopez worked with Rich Costey to finish the album in a three-week stretch, assisted by Shawn Michael Sullivan and Claudius Mittendorfer as editors.^[8]

In an interview, Carranza described the recording process for The Bedlam in Goliath stating that no more than three takes an hour were recorded, as a way to soak in what was recorded and to hear the differences, which in turn improved the general mood and atmosphere of the album's creation. Elaborating on the method, Carranza stated that "when van Gogh was around he wasn't just painting, painting, painting. I'm sure he took a step back once in a while. You should do the same when you're recording."^[13]

The string quintet on "Soothsayer" was recorded on Wednesday, June 6, 2007, at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco.^{[citation needed]}

Eventually the band decided in favor of "Wax Simulacra" as the first single:^[14]

Originally, the label wanted to introduce the LP with the track "Goliath", but the band wouldn't have it. "'Goliath' is about nine, ten minutes long, and the end of it is so interesting, we didn't really want it to be used as a single", [Cedric] said. "It kept getting butchered and came off really bad."

Themes

Bixler-Zavala incorporated themes and names into the lyrics that were taken from messages given by "The Soothsayer". It also includes excerpts from poems that were found attached to the ouija, describing a love triangle between a woman, her daughter and a man in a Muslim society, along with an honor killing involving these people.^{[citation needed]} Each song reinterprets the relationship in some shape or form, and as a good luck charm to counteract the cryptic themes, Bixler-Zavala incorporated elements of the Afro-Caribbean religious tradition Santería into the lyrics as a "protective skin" to protect the band.^[7]

The album ultimately serves as an attempt to artistically reverse their perceived bad luck by "setting traps" for the listeners to use as a way to undo what "The Soothsayer" had brought upon the band. To aid the concept, vinyl editions of the album contain the band's own version of the ouija inside the gatefold.^[7]

Webisodes

Four webisodes were posted on The Mars Volta's official website, depicting the band in various and sometimes humorous situations.^[15]

• "Wax Simulacra" contains live footage of the band performing on their Australian 2007 Tour.
• "Aberinkula" is based around the band playing cards and then performing surgery on a person, finding odd objects inside of the body.
• "Goliath" consists of the band performing on obscure instruments in the middle of a street, with Cedric dressed like the Elephant Man.
• "Askepios" is made up of footage of a celebration party that takes place in front of a green screen. Several props and objects appearing in the other videos (including a piñata bearing the effigy of George W. Bush) are passed around and examined during the celebration.
• "Ilyena" was posted at Dailymotion, showing footage of the band in a classroom with Rodriguez-Lopez introducing Adrián Terrazas-González, who appears as a police officer to lecture to the class. The last half of the video shows everyone on a rooftop watching as graffiti artists Grey and Thomas Pridgen spray paint their tags on a wall.^[16]

2008 club tour

A ticket presale was announced on the band's website for a New Year's Eve show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California, promoted with flyers that featured exclusive The Bedlam in Goliath artwork illustrated by Jeff Jordan. The band would then announce a following January club tour in 2008 where they would then debut new material from the album for the first time prior to its release.^[17]

Notes

• An aberinkula is a special kind of drum used in Nigeria. Also, "aberinkula" can be translated as "non-believer".
• Metatron is the name of an angel in Judaism and some branches of Christianity. It is also considered to harbor the voice of God.
• Ilyena is a reference to Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov, which is the birth name of actress Dame Helen Mirren. "I've named a song 'Ilyena' after the real name of the actress Helen Mirren because she is my favorite actress and the song is a little lighthearted and different from the subject matter."^[41]
• The word "simulacrum" is used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting; especially of a god. It also describes an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Simulacra is the plural form of the word.
• Goliath is a Philistine warrior mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He is famous for his battle in the 11th century BC that he lost against David, the young Israelite boy who had already been chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to become the King of Israel.
• Goliath contains lyrics from a gospel hymn called "I Never Heard a Man Speak Like This Man Before". This hymn was also regularly sung at Jonestown about the cult leader Jim Jones.^[42][43]
• "Una cavaletta" is said to be a woman who constantly tries to change her lover into some fantasy she has conjured.
• Agadez is the largest city in northern Niger.
• Askepios is named after the Greek medicine god, Asclepius.
• The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. This symbol represents the cyclic nature of life and the infinity. It is spelled as "Ouroborous" on the album's track listing, but this is likely to be a printing error as the Mars Volta's official website and the ASCAP website both list the track as "Ouroboros".
• A soothsayer is one who predicts future events based on personal beliefs instead of common reasoning.
• The word "Conjugal" means anything that relates to marriage or the relationship between a married couple.
• The inner booklet features a series of images commonly known as the "Seven Powers of Africa".