Jackanory with The Mars Volta

The kooks of improvised music, from Beefheart to Sun Ra, find an almost transcendental freedom in its untrammelled possibilities. For Cedric Bixler, enormo-haired frontman of The Mars Volta, "it sounds corny, but there's a spiritual aspect to our music. It's like our church, our communion."

A slightly reticent interviewee, Bixler nonetheless has an evangelical belief in the power of unconstrained improvisation, influenced by "that Kerouac thing that the first cause is the best, like, the most honest and heartfelt." Working in such a free way, he has nonetheless arranged his "speaking in tongues," stream of consciousness lyrics into concept albums which focus on one particular narrative. For their new album, 'Amputechre', scored by bandmate Omar but performed by other musicians, including John Frusciante, he worked in a "more free way," experimenting with a multiplicity of voices, narratives and moods that could not have been possible in The Mars Volta's old, constricted practice. "We base our music around trying to sound like our favourite films look," he considers. "Omar likes to have a lot of different televisions playing his favourite movies when we go to record." Music, is "about tuning into the antennas you're born with" - something which both he and Omar are adept. There is, he claims, "a reason why whoever it was that made humans, put [Cedric and I] together in El Paso."

Both sonically and lyrically, the shadow of the Mars Volta's youth in the "middle of nowhere" town of El Paso looms large. "I guess I still write about the local equivalents to Iggy Pop… everyone had Iggy, they could see him on television or listen to his tunes. I had these local town drunk legends to sing about." He remains sentimental for the "era when I was struggling to get where I am, when I had two bucks and was living off Taco Bell." He sees it as his "duty and responsibility" to sing about dead friends and the stories of his youth.

Upon asking him if, by telling these stories, he's found some sort of resolution, he responds, "You know, those stories will always be there… I guess I'm just a folk singer, sitting on the porch singing songs that have been passed around for years. It's just that sometimes you can see folk songs happening in front of your eyes."