Frances the Mute Makes Me Angry, and Here's Why

27 April, 2025

  This was originally going to be a tier list of all 53 of the songs in my library that are over 10 minutes in length, but then I came to a realization: I could go on an entire ADHD rant about this album, because, to my knowledge, this topic is...not really discussed that much?

  So, with that being in mind: here's an ADHD rant about the clusterfucks that, in my opinion, hold Frances the Mute back from being a masterpiece of a prog rock album. Enjoy.

Physical Media Limitations

  This album was released in 2005, at a time where iTunes was still relatively new (coming onto the scene in 2001), and most people still owned and used physical media of some sort.

(Shoutout to the little kid version of me who had a battery-operated portable CD player)

  Every form of physical media is going to run into this issue at one point or another: how much stuff can you fit onto it before it just shrugs and says: "no more space, sorry bro"?

  For the CD-R, that limitation is, generally, 74 minutes. They can hold more than is listed, and higher-capacity discs do exist, but they begin to run into playback and compatibility issues as a result. This limit can be stretched to 80 minutes without too much trouble, so for simplicity's sake: let's call 80 minutes (1 hour, 20 minutes) the upper CD-R limit. Initially, Volta wanted to include six tracks on the album:

  1. Frances the Mute
  2. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus
  3. The Widow
  4. L'Via L'Viaquez
  5. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore
  6. Cassandra Gemini

  However, if they went forward with that plan of action, with every song existing as it does today: the album would have been 91 minutes and 31 seconds long. In the end, after the necessary cuts: the album ended up being 76 minutes and 55 seconds long. To achieve this, Volta had a choice to make: cut down some of the song length, or cut a track from the lineup.

Frances, Miranda, and The Ambience Problem

  Volta made the choice to cut "Frances the Mute" - the goddamn title track - from the album. They went ahead with the five-track version, and included "Frances" as part of the single release of "The Widow," instead. The lyrics to "Frances" were then placed into the CD's jewel case insert, visible behind the Frances the Mute CD itself. I'm about to argue that they could have easily made the choice to cut down some of the ambient sections, without losing too much in the way of their artistic vision, in order to preserve the title track for the album. (I'm not sorry, lol)

  I don't think they needed four and a half minutes of ambient noise leading into the true start of "Frances the Mute." They could have mixed the ending of "Frances" directly into the start of "Cygnus." The end of "Cygnus" is probably fine, but that section is about two minutes long. The end of "The Widow" does mix directly into "L'Via," which is nice, but again: does it need to be two minutes long? "L'Via" mixes directly into "Miranda," with the bird chirping and grandiose brass noises. Again: this is nice, and I do like that particular ambience, but it's another four-minute-long situation. "Cassandra Gemini" is fine, no notes; the song being long and weird feels intentional. The others...do not feel intentional.

  Take that all together, and that's 13 minutes that you could trim down from the album. Do you remember when I said that 80 minutes is what I would call the limit for a CD-R? In this particular instance, because the album would have been 91 and a half minutes long, in its unedited form: trimming 13 minutes from those sections knocks the album's length down to 78 minutes. This is a decently doable length for a CD. In fact: this Youtube upload (click here for a CD-R edit of Frances the Mute) proved this, by editing down the ambient sections between songs, and mixing parts together to make them flow into each other better.

  I don't like everything about this mix (why not just slam in with the "Frances" riff, rather than fading in?), but it proves that Volta could have done this. So, I stand by my position: hire a co-producer, goddamnit! But, alas, they didn't, so they went ahead with the five tracks, as-is. All should have been fine and dandy from here, but then the music industry decided to do what it does...

"Octandra Gemini"

  Universal would have - apparently - only paid Volta an EP's wages for the album, because it was 5 tracks long, despite the record length exceeding an hour. I cannot find a definitive source for this information, either in general or with Volta specifically, but given how the music industry loves to take advantage of artists and wring them dry, as well as the fact that EPs are generally no longer than 8 tracks: I'm inclined to believe it.

  Now, Volta could have split "Cassandra Gemini" into five parts, which would have increased the track count up to 9 different songs. However, it was split into 8 parts, only one of which followed the intended "flow" of the song. It can be assumed that this was also a result of Universal's intervention. If you want to understand how strange this forced decision was: go listen to the split-up version of "Gemini," with some silence in between each part, and tell me if it sounds right to you.

  In all fairness, some of the digital releases maintained the original 5-track layout. Today, though, if you go onto Spotify and Apple Music, you'll see the 8-track split remains. (Side note: there is a version of the album on Spotify which has the full song, but the content is not available?) Going onto Youtube, thankfully, reveals that people have taken it upon themselves to stitch the song back together.

Misprints, and The Metadata Problem

  This is where things get...weird. Weird both because of the colossal fuck-ups that had to have been made along the way, and because - to the best of my knowledge - no one has discussed this on the Internet before? The only place I can think of that may have had this discussion is the fan forum The Comatorium, and it...kinda doesn't exist anymore? At least, the old version doesn't exist anymore. Rest in peace.

  A lot of concept albums will list longer songs on the CD's jewel case insert with different "movements," if you will. The song is still one whole piece, and the CD's metadata does not show these movement names. It is done purely to present the artist's vision of how the song was constructed. A good and clear example of this is American Idiot, in which the songs "Jesus of Suburbia" (r-slur warning on that one) and "Homecoming" both have their movements listed on the CD art, as well as on the back track listing. Not only are they clearly listed, but if you listen to the songs, each section is pretty well-defined. They still, however, work perfectly well as full, complete songs.

  Frances the Mute is a less clear-cut example of this, with each moment (generally) flowing into every other moment, with few distinctions in between. The movements are listed out on the back track listing, as follows:


  1. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus
   a. Sarcophagi
   b. Umbilical Syllables
   c. Facilis Descensus Averni
   d. Con Safo
  2. The Widow
  3. L'Via L'Viaquez
  4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore
   a. Vade Mecum
   b. Pour Another Icepick
   c. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
   d. Con Safo
  5. Cassandra Geminni 1
   a. Tarantism
   b. Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream
   c. Faminepulse
   d. Multiple Spouse Wounds
   e. Sarcophagi

1 This is a typo, present on the art of every CD copy of the album.

  You may have noticed that the physical album only lists 5 tracks, despite having been split up into 12 tracks. The intended move was for "Cassandra Gemini" to be split into eight parts, and as a result, each part needed to have its own name. On Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube, the tracklist is as such:

  1. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus
  2. The Widow
  3. L'Via L'Viaquez
  4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore
  5. Cassandra Gemini
  6. Cassandra Gemini: Tarantism
  7. Cassandra Gemini: Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream
  8. Cassandra Gemini: Faminepulse
  9. Cassandra Gemini: Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
  10. Cassandra Gemini: Con Safo
  11. Cassandra Gemini: Multiple Spouse Wounds
  12. Cassandra Gemini: Sarcophagi

  You may have also noticed that the names listed here were taken from the titles of "Miranda's" movements, listed on the back of the CD. This is...fine, I have no objections to this decision. Where it gets weird is the metadata of the CD itself.

  I'm not going to explain the concept of metadata here, because - quite frankly - I cannot do so. What I will say is that, when you go to play or rip a CD in a media player, generally speaking, you should be able to see the CD's tracklist, or what song you are currently playing off of the CD.

  When you go to stick Frances the Mute in a computer, you'll notice something strange. The tracklist looks like this:

  1. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus
  2. The Widow
  3. L'Via L'Viaquez
  4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum
  5. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: B. Pour Another Icepick
  6. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
  7. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: D. Con Safo
  8. Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
  9. Cassandra Geminni: B. Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream
  10. Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
  11. Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
  12. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi

  Whoever did up the metadata for the album failed to get the memo that "Cassandra Gemini" was being split into 8 parts, and not 5. So, "Miranda" was split into four parts for the album release, right? No. Track 4 - "Miranda A. Vade Mecum" - is still one full 13-minute song. The entirety of "Miranda" is listed as its first part. The following 8 tracks are all part of "Cassandra Gemini."

  Three whole tracks are listed as the entirely wrong song, while the remaining five are incorrectly named. To add insult to injury: "Gemini" is misspelt as "Geminni" not only on the CD sleeve, but also, in the metadata itself.

  It took me all of two minutes to go onto Soulseek, and find someone who is sharing this fucked-up copy of the album. I have to wonder: was this metadata also on the December 2004 leak of the album that got shared around online? People must have been deeply confused by this if it was - I know I certainly am, as of writing this rant, in the year 2025, as well as for the handful of years in which I have owned this album.

  Most people on Soulseek, however, seem to be sharing either the digital version with the 8 "Gemini" tracks, or the correct 5-track version. (Which, by the way: you have to go and manually edit the metadata for yourself! You have to go into Audacity, and stitch all 8 parts back together yourself, to get the full 32-minute suite! Or, at least, that's what I did when I ripped the CD into my library.)

  It's worth noting here: an anecdotally-popular practice amongst Volta fans is to place "Frances the Mute" as the first track on the album, ahead of "Cygnus." To do this, you have to go into the metadata for each song, and shift the track number up, song-by-song. I have chosen to do this as well, so if you ever go into my Musicolet library and play the album, you're going to be getting the premium experience. Just...don't expect very much to happen for the first four minutes or so.

  Anyways, I recognize that I began to get off on a tangent back there. I have no idea how the communication between different departments got fucked up this badly, and I have no idea how - to my knowledge - nobody else on the Internet has bothered to bring this up before.

Conclusion

  Overall, Frances the Mute is still a good album, and it still deserves the level of praise that people place upon it. Honestly, Volta seemed to have encountered a lot of stumbling blocks along the way to the final release - most of them not their fault - and it really just paints a picture of the music industry and the lack of communication throughout the entire process of this album's creation.

  However, I will maintain what I said before: hire a goddamn co-producer, Omar. I wish he had done this, because then, the album's artistic vision would have been complete, and the ambience would have been far less distracting. It would have still been allowed to remain, but it wouldn't have ended up meandering the way that it ended up meandering.

...okay, bye