In Rainbows: The First Taste. Mmmmm......sweet.

There may be a hold on the addition to my fall playlist for the time being, kids. New musical obsession has been replaced.

I just got the new Radiohead album "In Rainbows" this morning!!! Thanks to NYLON magazine's constant bulletin postage on myspace, I found out about it the day after Johnny Greenwood officially announced the unofficial "leak". Now, of course, it's all over the place. The concept of this release is very forward thinking, very indie, and goddammit, it's fucking RADIOHEAD.

Check out a couple articles talking about their release concept:
Rolling Stone's "RockDaily" article
Yahoo Music

Now, I've only really listened through the album a couple times, but enough to develop a pretty strong attachment to the 3rd song from the tracklist, "Nude" right off the bat. This album in a whole at this point, is very mellow. Good driving music, but then again, I've only really listened to it while driving around today........ It's definitely not as frantic sounding as "Hail to the Thief". But then again, that album was a WHOLE hell of a lot more reactionary. Sounds like they took their time with this one. Thom's voice is as always, haunting to the point of slight suicidal tendencies while listening. The guitar work struck me as EXTREMELY eloquent as well. Can guitar work BE eloquent?? Anyway.

So I have this tendency to deconstruct music. Meaning pulling it apart into sections, and speculate as to where they got their inspiration. To try and liken them to other musicians, proving the fact that things like music, and words, are all connected. And I like trying to be the one to find those silvery strands. There are a few tracks I'll be touching with my deconstructivenessicity this evening.


NUDE (track 3): First of all, It's fucking beautiful. It's soft and sweet like......it makes me think of vanilla ice cream with caramel and chocolate swirls. It's got a mellow laid back swinging beat. The bass is round and blurry around the edges. The guitar truely floats right on top of the mix, clean and glistening. Listening to it right now, Thom's voice makes me feel so many different things I don't even know where to start. AH!! It's just perfect. Desperate and wise and frail....reverb and dryness at the right moments. There isn't a spot on this gem. Not that I can see or hear. Amazingly enough, I can't liken this to anything I've heard before. At least not yet. Maybe I'm too taken by it right now to bear the fragments.

Radiohead has this knack for making the best fucking chord changes. Sometimes you can predict exactly where they're going to go, and it makes you feel like you know them. They have some sort of archaic formula. And if you listen to enough of them, obssess over them enough, knowing that they're going to go somewhere and actually have it happen without pre-meditation brings some warm fuzzy sense of intimacy. It's like they gave you a hug or something! But sometimes they throw out a curve. They might hint at something when Thom will do a little wavering between half steps for a bar or two, then BAM! They go up a half step. Unexpected modulation. They're reminding us that we only know what they let us know....and they're always changing. Maybe it's about introducing the idea of a change at the perfect moment. Or maybe so subtly that we really only hear it on some subconscious level, and the reaction when the change actually happens is slightly surprising, but comforting at the same time. Oh, how I love my little Radiohead bubble.

ALL I NEED (track 5): Now, I automatically worry that I'm going to sound like a complete asshole with what I'm going to say next. But I'm going to say it anyway. This song reminds me of Boards of Canada. Specifically, the song "Roygbiv" off of the album "Music Has the Right to Children", released in 1998. Not TOO many similarities, but the ones that struck me from the beginning of the song is the overall feel of the song, the simple kind of heavy but bouncy groove, and the synth bass. The synth is a VERY prominent part of both of the songs. Perhaps a sign that even bands like Radiohead pull influences from contemporary musical innovators! Music will never die!!!!

Here is a video I found on YouTube, just to give you a taste of "Roygbiv":




If you listen to Boards of Canada, then maybe you know what I'm talking about? Or hey, even if you are interested in them, or you desire to prove I'm full of shit, check them out. Seriously. Do it.

FAUST ARP (track 6): Ok. So at first, I was trying to build up some great argument as to why this song was so very much Led Zeppelin. With the Jimmy Page-esque perfection of the finger picking, to the synthy strings, and even the way Thom sings the chorus. Very sad heartbroken Rober Plant. I listened a few times, then I smacked myself in the head and realized that the guitar is at the same time veryPink Floyd. "A Pillow of Winds"-ish, perhaps? A more common drawing in similarities, I know. I kind of disappointed myself with that one, actually. Oh well.

And so, in searching for a Zeppelin song or two that I can make that satistfying connection I adore making, I stumbled upon the blue flower that is Zep III. I've lost my train of thought. They've pulled me out of the present into the past, and I feel comfortable here for now. So I bid you adue. Apologies "to all my faithful readers" (hahahahahahaha) for not even touching on one thing I mentioned I would. A lesson learned. Don't predict what will move me to write.

Hope it was enjoyable all the same. Till next time.....