CHURCH GOING: radiohead

Showing posts with label radiohead. Show all posts

May 3, 2016

September 25, 2012

White Noise by Don DeLillo
Like a lot of North American consumers, I've often found comfort in the sterile transcendence of the supermarket, with its white lights and rows of multicoloured commodities uniformly arranged. This summer, I finally managed to read a book that's been recommended to me by several friends and colleagues, Don DeLillo's White Noise. It features several memorable scenes that describe a similar kind of aesthetic experience.

Steffie took my hand and we walked past the fruit bins, an area that extended about forty-five yards along one wall. The bins were arranged diagonally and backed by mirrors that people accidentally punched when reaching for fruit in the upper rows. A voice in the loudspeaker said: "Kleenex Softique, your truck's blocking the entrance." Apples and lemons tumbled in twos and threes to the floor when someone took a fruit from certain places in the stacked array. There were six kinds of apples, there were exotic melons in several pastels. Everything seemed to be in season, sprayed, burnished, bright. People tore filmy bags off racks and tried to figure out which end opened. I realized the place was awash in noise. The toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker and coffee-making machines, the cries of children. And over it all, or under it all, a dull and unlocatable roar, as of some form of swarming life just outside of human apprehension. (36)

The supermarket shelves have been rearranged. It happened one day without warning. There is agitation and panic in the aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers. […] They scrutinize the small print on packages, wary of a second level of betrayal. The men scan for stamped dates, the women for ingredients. Many have trouble making out the words. Smeared print, ghost images. In the altered shelves, the ambient roar, in the plain and heartless fact of their decline, they try to work their way through confusion. But in the end it doesn’t matter what they see or think they see. The terminals are equipped with holographic scanners, which decode the binary secret of every item, infallibly. This is the language of waves and radiation, or how the dead speak to the living. And this is where we wait together, regardless of our age, our carts stocked with brightly colored goods. A slowly moving line, satisfying, giving us time to glance at the tabloids in the racks. Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. The cults of the famous and the dead. (309-10)

Published in 1985, White Noise is a wonderfully angsty novel that articulates the kind of consumer malaise that, in the years to come, is going to become a cultural commonplace. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, here, DeLillo basically prophecies the kind of ideological tropes (especially the vaguely spiritual approach to store bought products--I guess you could just call it, commodity fetishism; as well as the obsession with meaning, pharmaceuticals, the paranormal, and ultimately with death) that I identify with authors like Douglas Coupland (whose Generation X now seems to me like it couldn't have happened without DeLillo) and David Foster Wallace.

But, yeah, also Radiohead.

I also decided to dive into the 33 1/3 series from Continuum. I wanted to prep myself for Jonathan Letham's mega-hyped contribution to the series (published in June), and to figure whether I had the chops to construct one of my own volumes.

Kid A by Marvin Lin
Lin's tribute to what remains my favourite Radiohead album was written by the founder of one of my favourite music websites, Tiny Mix Tapes. Some books in the series are more critical than others, and Lin's book tries to straddle the line between excessive fandom and cultural analysis.Theoretically speaking, the book is pretty hit and miss. But it succeeds in providing a lot of interesting contextual analysis for Kid A's release: the album was notoriously polarizing among critics and, for me at least, has always provided a helpful watershed moment (or, "event," as Lin calls it) for the digital age.

Fear of Music by Jonathan Letham
I wasn't familiar with Letham's style before picking up this book (I did, however, order his novel Fortress of Solitude immediately after finishing it), and I wasn't expecting Letham's writing to be so gutteral. It's definitely one of the most self-conscious books in the series, weaving in and out of personal recollections, meditating on each Talking Heads track, and attempting to articulate the weird relationship we construct with our past.

The punishing intensity we bring to the imperfect reflections we find in the mirror of artworks we choose to love, and our readiness to be betrayed by their failure to continue to match our next moves in the mime-show, our next steps in the dance, is likely a form of mercy. That, because it is a coping mechanism, a deflection of a punishing intensity we mostly wouldn't want -- except maybe once a week, on a shrink's couch -- to apply to ourselves. And any fan who has ever risked disappointment with their love, or any artist who has ever put themselves in the position to disappoint a fan, or a critic, if they are honest with themselves knows that the disappointment that ensues is above all a human situation. (140)

December 13, 2011

September 27, 2011

Radiohead on the Colbert Report

Last night the boys from Radiohead were special guests on an hour long episode of The Colbert Report. It's reportedly their first late-night television appearance in 18 years. That's right; not since performing "Creep" for Conan O'Brien back in '93 has the band graced the stage of a late-night talk show. Apart from all the anti-corporate jokes (there were a lot, and they were tiresome at best), Radiohead's live performances left a serious impression on me. Colbert was also visibly stunned. Here's an excerpt from what Pitchfork posted earlier this morning:

The brilliance of Colbert is that he makes the people sitting across from him (including aloof British bands) look good because of his asshole posturing while, obviously, remaining totally knowing and somehow lovable. When not on air, he came off more like a warm, goofy dad, explaining the editing of the show and even briefly serenading his wife, who was in attendance. As Colbert combed through the vinyl version of Limbs onstage between songs, guitarist Ed O'Brien joked, "It's like having a headmaster look at your homework." From his toe-tapping during Radiohead's performance, as well as his general giddiness throughout the night, on and off camera, it definitely seemed like Colbert approved.

Radiohead performed a total of six songs, four of which were from their release earlier this year, The King of Limbs. The best of the lot, however, was their newest song, "The Daily Mail" (below, albeit from a different concert), which is of course quite timely given the Rupert Murdoch fiasco that, despite its disappearance from the headlines, rages on.

February 23, 2011

New Music: PJ Harvey, Radiohead

It appears to the be the year for English pop artists to engage in political critique -- well, sort of. Who knew musicians could still find their arsenal by tarrying with the pastoral tradition?

PJ Harvey's Let England Shake isn't terribly complex ("How is our glorious country sown? Not with wheat and corn" -- "Our land is plowed by tanks!" Harvey sings on "The Glorious Land"), but musically there's a lot going on. Harvey's familiar songwriting style is stronger than ever (best heard in songs like "Bitter Branches" and "In the Dark Places"), but it seems she's taken the lessons of failed albums like White Chalk and her recent collaboration with John Parish (A Woman a Man Walked By) to heart: here, murky production, disparate soundscapes, and a Victorian-gothic aesthetic merge with reflections on post-colonial England: a nation constantly in dialogue with its own legacy (as she demonstrates on the haunting centerpiece, "England"). Harvey's approach is to play with, juxtapose, subvert cultural resting places with a downright bloody history: into this mix she throws lines from English protest songs, reggae samples, and tons of autoharp. In other words, Harvey's task with Let England Shake is to re-energize the English tradition of political critique. It could have been a heavy-handed train-wreck, but in Harvey's hands (and thanks incredible team she's assembled: Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, John Parish, Flood, etc.), Let England Shake reminds PJ Harvey fans why we came to love her in the first place: not for her brilliant insights, but for the raw emotion that can only come by looking the devil in the face.

Radiohead's music always gestures toward some kind of late capitalist malaise, and The King of Limbs is no different. Indeed, this time around there seems to be a strong resonance between the natural imagery transparently there (both in the cover art and in Yorke's lyrics) and a recently resurfaced debate over forest enclosures throughout much of Britain. But regardless of its political timeliness, The King of Limbs is a strange animal. As is often the case with Radiohead's albums, early reviews have been typically vague. It's not their best album -- I think we're all agreed on that -- but neither should it be written off as a misstep. The King of Limbs is a good album, but it's also their most idiosyncratic -- only Amnesiac comes close. There's a strong dubstep influence and the more organic elements that characterized In Rainbows have retreated into the shadows only to reemerge in two oddly situated tracks: the lovely, effortless, out-of-place piano ballad, "Codex," and its partner, the echo-chamber folk song, "Give up the Ghost." The rest of the album is comprised of rhythmically complex songs that seem to fold in on themselves; at times, one wonders what the rest of the band was up to during recording sessions. As for immediate highlights, there's the devious lead single (below) "Lotus Flower" (in my opinion, this is one best tracks of the year so far), the very catchy, occasionally clumsy "Little by Little" (which picks up nicely from Amnesiac's "I Might be Wrong") and an album closer ("Separator") that actually does something -- to put it a bit differently, "Separator" is more expansive than what we get on the rest of The King of Limbs: it incorporates a fantastic lead guitar line, releases some (dearly missed) ambient steam, and gets as close to an anthem ("Wake me up") as Radiohead can currently get. We Radiohead fans need not despair. The King of Limbs is full of fine moments. More than anything else, we're victims of our own anticipation.

February 14, 2011

New Radiohead: The King of Limbs

RADIOHEAD! Aw, shucks. You guys totally had me. I never expected you to announce a your new album, The King of Limbs, on Valentine's Day; no less, the week before it's available for download from your website. Those of us who still like holding a physical album in our hands have to wait until May 9. Last time you guys pulled a stunt like this, I bought your album twice. I imagine that's going to happen again.

Apparently The King Of Limbs is a reference to an oak tree in Wiltshire, England's Savernake Forest. Thought to be more than 1,000 years old, the ancient tree and Savernake Forest are located close to Tottenham House, where Radiohead recorded part of In Rainbows. So here's something related (but totally different) that I've recently been enjoying:

December 31, 2009

album of the decade

No alarms and no surprises...Kid A is my favourite album of the decade. I expound below. Here's what the rest of my list looks like. Follow the (highlighted) links to the write-ups. There are some recent additions here that I haven't had time to properly address. Oh well. Maybe next decade.

25. Chad VanGaalen - Infiniheart (Flemish Eye, 2004), Skelliconnection (Flemish Eye, 2006), Soft Airplane (Flemish Eye, 2008)
24. Micachu and the Shapes - Jewellery (Rough Trade, 2009)
23. PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (Island, 2000)
22. Beck - Sea Change (Geffen, 2002)
21. White Stripes - White Blood Cells (V2, 2001), Elephant (V2, 2003)
20. Akron/Family - Akron/Family (Young God, 2005)
19. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell (Interscope, 2003)
18. The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving (G7 Welcoming Committee, 2000)
17. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Matador, 2000)
16. Constantines - Shine a Light (Three Gut Records, 2003)
15. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat (Kill Rock Stars, 2002), The Woods (Sub-Pop, 2006)
14. Menomena - Friend and Foe (Barsuk, 2007)
13. Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans (Sounds Familyre, 2004), Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty, 2005), Greetings From Michigan (Asthmatic Kitty, 2003)
12. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (Domino, 2009)
11. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House (Warp, 2006)
10. The Books - The Lemon of Pink (Tomlab, 2003)
9. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City, 2004), Ys. (Drag City, 2006)
8. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Pig Lib (Matador, 2003)
7. Deerhunter - Microcastle (Kranky, 2008)
6. Sonic Youth - Murray Street (Geffen, 2002)
5. Cat Power - You Are Free (Matador, 2003)
4. Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights (Matador, 2002)
3. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope, 2006)
2. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica (Epic, 2000)

1. Radiohead
- Kid A (Parlaphone/Capitol, 2000), Amnesiac (Parlaphone/Capitol, 2001), Hail to the Thief (Parlaphone/Capitol, 2003), In Rainbows (2007)

Here we are at the top (sort of). Kid A is my favourite album of the decade, but if I'm going take the decade seriously, I can't ignore the rest of their out put. Amnesiac, for example, followed quickly after Kid A and is a product of the same creative peak. Though a weaker album, Hail to the Thief was certainly a big event for me: for a while my entire universe seemed to revolve around that release date; and In Rainbows was a triumphant return to form and a revitalization of the band's sound, now inseparable from the minor stir it caused in the online music world.

Everybody's already pontificated on the significance of Kid A (both in terms of musical innovation and its relevance to the end of physical media). Oddly enough this was my first Radiohead album and so I didn't really have a prior relationship with the band's 90s output. I knew Radiohead were important for a variety of reasons, but as for "Radiohead trying not to sound like Radiohead" and the other postmodern claims that accompanied this album, they were over my head and, to be honest, I just wasn't interested at the time.

I loved Kid A not for the statement it was supposed to be making, not because of where it fit into the band's output, not because it represented the "death of rock 'n' roll" or because it nearly broke up the band; I loved it because it introduced me to a new world of sound and music, I loved it because of its sheer beauty, its ambient textures ("Treefingers"), the manufactured purity of Thom Yorke's vocals (especially on the title track), the urgency, energy, but also the simplicity of songs like of "Ideoteque" and "National Anthem." I identified with the dreams of solitude on "How to Disappear Completely," but also with the social/evolutionary angst of "Optimistic." How could an album be so many different things all at once?

Another bit of subtext: I bought this album right before departing for a trip to England. For the three weeks we were there, this cd did not leave my discman. What did I care if it was raining, if the sun refused to shine? I had Radiohead to keep me company. Listening to "In Limbo" while wandering through the crowds of Heathrow still stands out to me ("You're living in a fantasy. . . I'm lost at sea, don't bother me, I've lost my way"). I remember buying a magazine with the cover headline: "Cheer Up! Here Comes Radiohead."

A smaller part of Kid A's brilliance lies in the absence of any liner notes. The album booklet is made up of more art by Stanley Donwood, and so listening (for me) became a far more interesting process of interpretation; you can hear one line in a variety of ways. "Ideoteque," is a good example. At first, "Here I'm alive...everything all at a time," then I started to hear "Here I'm alone...everything all at a time" and finally it became clear that Yorke was probably singing "Here I'm allowed everything all of the time." Okay, so it's not that profound. But I love how disorienting Kid A makes the solitary listening experience. There's something comforting about it.

Kid A has plenty of cultural significance, but in the end, it's important and appealing because it's a beautiful work of art that asks difficult questions evades easy answers. It's simply an album that I'll never tire of.

September 29, 2009

This is a new low, probably.

I've never been into hockey pools (or any other pro-sports pool, for that matter), not because it's a form of gambling I should probably condemn, nor because I its so trivial and doesn't amount to anything (unless you win the $20 pot!). There's a draft and everyone takes turns choosing their players, keeping in mind al l the minute details regarding injuries, playing time, etc. A friend and I have developed the same sort of thing for Pitchfork's list of the "best" albums from the past decade, which is already well underway (pissing people off). We take turns picking albums until we each have ten and the one who has the best ranking with his select albums in P4K's top 20 wins something. The only problem is we already both know who's taking home the top spot.

It will be a major upset if Radiohead's Kid A isn't number one, especially considering how the site has hailed it as the "Last Album" (just read their review of the reissue) and how unabashedly they love all things RH. That said, P4K is known to make stupid ranking decisions just to throw people off and show themselves to be a step above the predictions of common folk. We can also safely assume that Outkast, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, The Knife, M.I.A, Modest Mouse, LCD Soundsystem, Jay-Z, Interpol, the Books, and Sufjan Stevens will clean up. I also expect to see the White Stripes, despite the fact that almost all of their albums have been written off and panned by P4K writers. Kid A deserves to take this thing home. We all know how this should end. My list is in the works and you'd better believe Kid A/Amnesiac will be leading things off not with a bang, but a whimper.

August 14, 2009

wall of ice: a new radiohead EP on the way?

***More sketchy news re: Radiohead via the Quietus:

"This week the world has been a-flutter with the news that Radiohead might be releasing new material on Monday, August 17 after a new song seemed to appear online.

"Now, eagle-eyed observers have noticed that elements of the file and code attached to the song featured the words "wall" and "of" and "ice", and that indeed the combination of the three appeared in a mysterious poem that accomanpanied the track on back-of-the-internet-lorry site what.cd. You can find all the Wall of Ice stuff hidden in the ASCII code here.

"If you therefore assume that Radiohead follow the same model as they did with In Rainbows – ie they create a website based on the title of the release – you get www.wallofice.com. And that leads straight to the W. A. S. T. E. Shop. In other words, it looks very much like the rumours are true: there’s an EP coming with that title and Radiohead’s site is all set up to receive the orders via that site." Read the full article.

+ + +

This song has been circulating in the sort of frenzy you'd expect when something from Radiohead leaks. "These Are My Twisted Words" may not get a proper release (it could be Radiohead's contribution to the Twilight sequel's soundtrack; and Thom Yorke recently suggested, in an interview with The Believer, that a new LP won't be coming any time soon, but he has a habit of saying one thing and doing the opposite), but it's a damn fine song: dark, atmospheric, but mysteriously upbeat. It seems to me that "...Twisted Words" would have been quite at home on the criminally underrated b-side collection included with the deluxe edition of In Rainbows. Shame the disc didn't get a wider release.

CHURCH GOING