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Amputechture

album by The Mars Volta

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ477411
Source-derived summary

Amputechture is the third studio album by American progressive rock band the Mars Volta, released on September 12, 2006, on Gold Standard Laboratories and Universal Records. Produced by guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the album marks the final appearance of drummer Jon Theodore, and is the first studio album to feature guitarist and sound manipulator Paul Hinojos, formerly of At the Drive-In and Sparta.

Amputechture debuted at number 9 on the Billboard 200, selling over 59,000 copies in its opening week and an estimated 400,000 copies as of 2009.

Overview

Production

The album was recorded in Los Angeles, California, El Paso, Texas, and Melbourne, Australia in late 2005 and early 2006. It was produced by Omar Rodríguez-López and mixed by Rich Costey.

Although most of Amputechture was newly written and recorded, the band also incorporated older material into some of the album's tracks. "Viscera Eyes" evolved from a song originally written by Omar while in At the Drive-In. "Day of the Baphomets" uses lyrics and melody from A Plague Upon Your Hissing Children an unreleased song that was recorded for De-Loused in the Comatorium. Bassist Juan Alderete said the bass solo introduction was recorded in one take.

In early July 2006, "Viscera Eyes" was officially released on the band's MySpace page.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Amputechture” is album by The Mars Volta. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Amputechture, album and Mars, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 2009, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006-09-12. For this dossier, Amputechture, album and Mars is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by The Mars Volta” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q477411. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2009 and 2005.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Amputechture”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Amputechture primary sources, Amputechture archive and Amputechture research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Amputechture” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.