Radiohead--Hail to the Thief: A Reconsideration

(Cross-posted at Death-Media)

With new Radiohead songs popping up seemingly by the day, and a new EP maybe on the horizon, it seems an appropriate time to take a look back at the band's least-well-regarded album since Pablo Honey, namely 2003's Hail to the Thief.

What follows is a track by track, live-blog style listen through of the record. Hopefully at the end we will be closer to understanding where this record fits in with the general movements of pop in the last decade or so...


1. Appropriately subtitled, "The Lukewarm," one can understand how this opener would leave die-hards dry. It has an almost punk frenzy to it that was perhaps only present on much earlier songs like "Just" and the one misfire on OK Computer, "Electioneering." People had hoped for a return to the band's earlier, 'Alternative' sound, but I don't feel like this kind of ranting intensity was what anyone had in mind. Despite that, the guitar tone, particularly on the interlude that comes in around 2:30 is great, as is the Beatlesy bridge Thom sings over that figure that actually leads directly to the song's resolution.

2. "Sit Down Stand Up" opens with the sequenced beat familiar from Amnesiac and in some ways it has similarities with that album's version of "Morning Bell"... However, the driving, dark central section, along with Thom's lyrics about "the jaws of hell" lend the track an eerie, dark core absent from even the most despairing moments on Amnesiac. The more punishing beat that comes in around 3:10 combined with Thom's repetitive vocals confirm us in our belief in the song's dark progress--there is something bleak, hopeless about this frantic repetition.

3. "Sail to the Moon" Here we are back in 'Pyramid Song' territory, the slow melancholic piano ballad; here Thom's keys are augmented by some lovely guitar work, but despite the set-up and dynamic integration of the band as the song evolves, we are still hovering in a universe of irresolution. The tension continues to mount.

4. "Backdrifts" begins with samples almost reminiscent of the noisy "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" from Amnesiac, but Thom's hooky vocals make it clear this track is moving more in the direction of dub music, in an extremely oblique, British way prefiguring some of Animal Collective's material.

5. "Go to Sleep" has a guitar centric opening, with a characteristically progressive, moving bass line provided by Colin Greenwood (along with U2's Adam Clayton one of the most underrated bass players in rock). There is something of the guitar centric movement one associates with The Bends on the middle section of the tune, and one is almost ready for an explosion in the mold of "Just," but the lead figures Johnny eventually overlays are not nearly so discordant nor lead-like as those on the earlier song, and surprisingly, as we are expecting some kind of climax, the track fades out... It's almost like the band is toying with us...

6. "Where I End and You Begin" Bass-heavy intro with ethereal analog synth waves cloaking us, we enter into a driving fog, a movement towards we know not what. Thom's vocals again provide the illusion of direction, but the overall mood is still one of profound discontent. I'm beating a dead horse, I know, but the reason people are down on this record is because it's, well, dark as hell!

7. "We Suck Young Blood" Predictably no break from the unrelenting misery here. The interlude vocals are beautifully interwoven, and the hand-claps are an unexpected touch for Radiohead, but overall this track is Thom at his most discordant. This track is why people hate Thom Yorke. The piano drone riff that kicks off around 3:00 briefly gives us a hint of progress, but in a matter of seconds we are back to dreary dissolution. Hints of Thom's future Twilight involvement in the theme here?

8. "The Gloaming" is eltronica central, for this record, and it may as well be called the "glooming" because it is about as dank and fog-ridden as you can get with a staticy electronic beat backing you. The interplay of beats is an advance on the brilliant "Idioteque" in some senses, but here there is something missing... Perhaps it is a melody that resolves in a satisfying way?

9. With "There There" we finally reach a moment of release. And what release. This is among my favorite songs by the band. The booming tom toms combined with the electric introductory guitar riff set the stage perfectly. Thom then comes in singing a resolution-laden melody! When he gets to the 'chorus' the crunch of Ed and Johnny's guitars is positively divine, and the second chorus, where Thom resolves up instead of down on the second "just cause you feel it/doesn't mean it's there" is simply sublime. The transition that follows, while looking back to other segmented compositions such as "Paranoid Android" also looks forward to the progressive structures to be found on such In Rainbows gems as "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." The second half of the song returns us to the loud, clangy noise (influenced by Sonic Youth as much as Zeppelin) we associate with a younger version of the band ("My Iron Lung," "Paranoid Android," etc.). This song ultimately plays a role similar to that played by "Optimistic" on Kid A; it is in keeping with the tone of the rest of the album, but it also hearkens back to an older, more familiar sound. I consider this to be the album's peak.

10. "I Will" (the same title as a brief The Beatles cut by Paul McCartney) brings us back to the limited pallet introduced earlier. The harmony singing here is both impressive and effective, and there is something simply appealing about the composition of the song, something almost Spanish or Classical in its structure...

11. "A Punchup at a Wedding" More hints of direction here, with an almost Madman Across the Water-era Elton John opening over a funky electronic beat. Thom's vocals immediately dispel any further comparisons to Mr. Dwight, and the progressive guitar riff that comes in suggests we are again in the land of resolution... The chorus, which comes in around the 1:50 mark, is heartbreaking, if possibly cloying to some ears (not these, I'm just guessing...)... This, like "There There" has the feeling and structure we more commonly associate with a 'song'... The rest of the album seems interested in testing this boundary, seeing how completely feigned structures can stand in for the real thing... Or something. I like this one. The sample that comes in around 4:00 is great and adds a layer of continuity with some of the earlier songs, in that it offers a cold counterpoint.

12. "Myxomatosis" heavy, odd time-signature guitar figure opens here with a crushing synth bass doubling. Despite this daunting opening, the interplay between the synth and Thom's voice works well, particularly given the contrast created when the synths drop out. Synths that drop in around 1:40 are amazing texturally. No chorus in sight. This is an impressive track, despite its bending back to the mean in some senses, definitely worth re-hearing if it's been a while.

13. "Scatterbrain" Perhaps the first overt jabs at pure beauty, 54 minutes into the album? Okay. Live, touchable guitar figure opens this piece. Can the delicate warmth last? Yes! We have a very melodic Thom here, singing over some well modulated changes. Dissonance undergirds, as ever, but the separation of the melodic and the discordant is finally at peace, the two halves having reached some accord over the song's first minute. The promise is fulfilled, a great number.

14. "A Wolf at the Door" Back to the dissonance, punky delivery of the first song, mixed with the processional grandeus or "Life in a Glass House"... We're getting close to the end. What's that? A great chorus? Awesome! Didn't see that one coming guys, nice work. Great song. Great way to end an extremely challenging album.


Final verdict? As I say just above, a challenging record, and one in its way as dark as Closer or In Utero. Happily this album did not precede a suicide but was instead a stop along the way to the glorious In Rainbows and the interesting new tracks emerging now... Were this produced by any other band it would be hailed as a masterpiece. It has a bleakness of its own. It makes me understand new aspects of depression, of obsession, of the desperation inherent in trying to be. I think it's a great album.

Steely Dan--Live in Boston 7-22-2009

Steely Dan were great.

Not only did they thoughtfully have Sam Yahel open, but the band was predictably impeccable.

On top of that, they had the gall to play the song 'Aja' with a drummer who is not 1/10th what Steve Gadd is on the recording... The drum breakdown was literally pathetic by comparison.

Well done. Consider me a hater.

Less than fifth best concert I've seen this year:

1. Dirty Projectors, 7-4-2009, Holocene, Portland

2. Phoenix, 6-18-2009, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

3. Little Wings, 5-30-2009, Monster Island Basement, Brooklyn

4. Rain Machine, Nat Baldwin, Extra Life, 5-7-2009, Union Pool, Brooklyn

5. Larkin Grimm, 4-9-2009, The Delancey, Manhattan

Love you Steely Dan, but let's move forward.

The Dead Weather 7-17-2009

James generously invited me to join him at The Dead Weather's Terminal 5 show last night. I went mainly out of curiosity, having not been to a show at such a large venue (3000) since seeing Prince at the then Fleet Center in 2004.

I grew up a huge Zeppelin and Hendrix fan, and though I haven't followed Jack White's various incarnations and reincarnations all that closely, I've always had a generally favorable assessment of his treatment of a classic aesthetic.

In this regard the show did not disappoint. The female vocalist and sometime-guitarist Allison Mosshart was a more than able front-person for a group whose most famous member was, curiously, the drummer...

Phil Collins comparisons aside, the vibe Jack's drumming most consistently brought to mind was that of the late Buddy Miles, particularly Miles's work on "Machine Gun" on the Band of Gypsies record and also on his seminal classic "Them Changes." That is to say, he was pretty great.

The band was as expected blues oriented, each track conjuring different memories of "Physical Graffiti" and "Led Zeppelin II" for this Page saturated soul. The tones were raw, vintage sounding, the whole band really got into it in the way most of the Brooklyn geniuses I follow don't, but hey, to each his own!

I can't say that song writing is a strength of this group, but certainly what they lack in that area they make up in pure virtuosity of presence. And if there is ever any doubt, any moment of uncertainty, Jack can simply emerge from behind the kit, grab a Les Paul, and fucking kill it like Jimmy Page only wishes he still could. (He did this for the last song pre-encore)

It's a meme, but Jack White is a legit rock star in a way that Dave Portner and Ed Droste aren't, and I say this admiring no two rock artists more than Droste and Portner... It's just for the pure classic rock fueled Zep addict, Jack White brings that blues based, alcohol oriented musical brutality in a way that hits the sweet spot.

Was 'Rise Above' way heavier than 'Icky Thump'? Of course. Are Dirty Projectors avant niched to death turned blooming life? Yes.

Is Modest Mouse better than the White Stripes. Way better.

Is this post over?

(Cross-posted at Death-Media)

I have been incognito for a while now, but I'm happy to report that The ACTUAL Rich and I were able to attend one of the musical highlights of the season last night. I could dive right into the concert, but the whole night deserves cataloging.

On the corner of Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg I waited for a full five minutes for Rich to appear; I knew he would be late because I had caught an unprecedented sequence of transfers in journeying from my SpaHa Palacio. Entering the subway the 6 met me and and at 86th street the 4 was waiting--a minute on the platform at 14th street brought the L into my view, and there I was, at Bedford Avenue waiting under scaffolding, shielding myself from the droplets that had previously stained my iPhone's face and rendered texting temporarily impossible.

Gott sei dank, Rich appeared: 'There are several good options, Mexican, Mexican, Burger...' 'Burger.' And so it was.

After dinner we headed a bit north of Williamsburg to a spot preselected by our resident gormand, The Black Rabbit, notable for its variety of absinthe cocktails... Rich and I each had an absinthe/sugar/water cocktail in the true Hemingway style... The bar tender really did right, also, it was an absolutely wonderful drinking experience...

Having downed our magnificent Van Goghian cocktails, we wisely headed south again, back towards North 6th Street and our inevitable collision with destiny!

The show was unbelievable. The crowd was moving and, unlike any Williamsburg crowd in memory, all were instantly gyrating as if to subliminal tones, to triggers--and what was most special is that the band, during moments of pause or hypostasis (ie when a pause called for the lights to Vogue-like freeze-frame) were so beyond game, so full of love for the crowd that they mugged insatiably and gorgeously... There were moments when I thought I could detect the insatiable flare of The Revolution in Thomas Mars's loving mutuality with the crowd, but this is probably another of my base projections... After all, this latter-day Lafayette, in Obamerica, surely has no place...

That aside, the second encore track, single '1901' drove the crowd to a Segovia bull-fight level of madness! When Mars leaped into the crowd the full body of the audience accordingly surged forward, each 'hey hey hey hey" sequence thereby successfully embodied...

Best show of 2009 so far (slightly displacing "Little Winngs" Todd P show...)...

Dig the revolution in this Letterman video:

Best albums to come out since Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Critical reception is a funny thing. Critics are obsessed with listing and relisting their favorite albums; thus an album, though it of course remains static once released (ignoring reissues with bonus tracks as a generally malignant phenomenon), in some critics’ ears will “get better” over time. This might be called “the fine wine syndrome.” And no album has benefited more from this than Aeroplane.

When it first came out, Pitchfork gave it merely 8.7. (For some perspective, let’s recall that they instantly anointed …And You Will Know Us by Our Trail of Dead, Source Tags and Codes a 10.0. Good call?! guys...) But when the Aeroplane reissue dropped in 2005, what do you know, the review was upgraded to a 10.0. And no one had a problem with this. And that was just.

It was like when those Joy Division reissues came out. If Pitchfork had given them anything less than a 10.0, their reading audience would have been very angry. No doubt, if Pitchfork had existed in 1979, they would have given Unknown Pleasures an 8.5 and Closer a 9.0. My backlash against their Trail of Dead review demonstrates the wisdom of this kind of skepticism about contemporary records.

With this as backdrop, I thought I’d "manifest" my ten favorite records released since 1998. Some of them will have begun to experience the "fine wine syndrome” while others remain relatively obscure, and others are just obvious. But like all would be internet music scribes, I treasure hierarchy and worship at the temple of order. Here is my list:

10. Little Wings, Magic Wand: We'll start the list off with the album that has perhaps the most Aeroplane-like intensity in its lyrics. Kyle Field is a great visual artist, but I would also argue he is a tremendous Whitmanian poet of the first order, and this album, particularly the songs "So What" and "Everybody," is his masterpiece.



9. Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica: This is the album where all of the great Isaac Brock stuff we liked from the 90s coalesced into something larger, something "universal" in a rather literal way in terms of the album's themes. It's a great record and it has aged very well; and the stuff they've done subsequently, while 'bigger' on a commercial scale, is also pretty good, which in itself is impressive.



8. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House: This album is great because it has such life and lightness simultaneously matched with density and darkness. The Rossen/Droste songwriting team is dynamic and dialectical; you have two divergent sensibilities merged both via instrumentation and Chris Taylor's excellent recording techniques, which itself is like a third song-writer. The group has a sound that is distinctive and definitive of an aesthetic all its own. For that, we are all thankful. Grizzly Bear are themselves the embodiment of taste in our modern era.



7. Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender: On a pure songwriting and instrumentation level, this album is one of the most miraculous debuts of all time. People have problems with the voice, and some tell me her music is "too intense" but I find these objections extraneous. The core of the music is so pure, so brilliantly structured and clean in its embodiment of a generously human spirit, that one cannot help but listen long and deeply to these songs.



6. Sigur Ros, Ágætis Byrjun This album has become a cliche of itself, but I still remember the first time I heard it on my car stereo right after it came out--it was and is unbelievably moving. There are layers here, and the use of reverb is paradigm-altering good. Though they have continued down an at times too similar road, this record continues to shimmer with resplendent substance.



5. Radiohead, In Rainbows: This album was announced and released in record time. A true surprise. its pricing structure (which yielded more profits than their last album before the record was physically released) gave the album an immense press boost.

Also the music was so clean, so incredibly awesome both in classic RH song structures and unbelievably great contemporary productions; it was better than we had any reason to expect it could possibly be, and in being so, it changed everyone's expectations of what is now possible.



4. Dirty Projectors, The Getty Address: This albums is an under-appreciated masterpiece. It combines the best elements of the Guided by Voices influenced lo-fi (that is suddenly popular again) with the best of the electronic artists to come along, both in hip-hop and in rock. The use of orchestral sounds and choruses layered on top of this fundamentally transgressive rhythmic core is what makes this record such a world changer. If you haven't heard it, or have only heard the group's other more recent (and also brilliant) records Rise Above and Bitte, Orca, give this one a whirl; it will blow your mind. It is the contemporary reinvention of opera, post-hip-hop and post-Bjork.



3. The Microphones, The Glow Pt. 2: If I had to pick a music recording grouped as an "album" that was somehow equivalent to Wordsworth's "Poems in Two Volumes" of 1807, I would be hard-pressed to select an album other than this one by Phil Elverum as The Microphones. He blends textures of emotion into environmental textures. It is wonderful to hear.



2. Bjork, Vespertine: A record that continued the work of broadening our awareness--and in doing so destroyed all of our preconceptions of what might follow. If you don't dig this record, I don't know what to say. It is without a doubt miraculously imprinting.



1. Radiohead, Kid A: This album is perhaps the best sounding record ever. The melding of rock and dance impulses works in a way that is different than say, New Order or Depeche Mode. It has a folkloric element, as though Radiohead were our Stravinsky among the village ravers. And through this sensitiveity it succeeds in fusing two major traditions in English popular music into a stunning and dark whole. Kid A was a game changer, and probably the best album since Aeroplane.



Okay, so there we have it, my first effort at such a compendium. This will be updated.

I've been thinking...

First of all, Bitte Orca leaked some weeks past, and it is all that one could hope. More on this one as the official release date nears.

I have been really impressed with a number of bands lately that I would normally not be interested in at all... What makes this even worse is that they are bands that are already popular.

But that said, there is something about the latest crop of pop songs that has passed by my ears that has made me sit up and take notice.

Clearly Harlem Shakes' debut has been leading the pack, as far as forcing me to take pop a little more seriously than I had previously goes. The band are/have been familiar to me on one level or another for several years, but this release is really fantastic, and I've been listening to it with a degree of intensity that is unusual for me, even when it is a friend's project... This one has some great songs buried under superficial layers of noodling...

There isn't any noodling here, really, nor should there be. For the next joint, Lexy, Jose, and company ought to do away with even these superficial nods to experimentation and go full bore after their bread and butter, which is writing the great American pop song, of course!!!

But I've been getting into Phoenix also for the first time. A band I would be prone to hate, for a variety of totally illegitimate reasons. But I've been digging this new record, love the sound of the vocals... Very well done, well conceived, marvelous pop-album.

But to get even further back to core essentials, I have recently downloaded several albums by the Beatles. I have had only two songs on my hard drive by this ubiquitous group for the last couple of years, (Dig a Pony + Blue Jay Way being the only exceptions for reasons I long ago forgot...).

I am looking in a popular direction, so expect more from me soon. In the meantime, Woods has an amazing new record out. The rest of Pitchfork's newly crowned elite ("Bat for Lashes," "Cymbals Eat Guitars," etc) leave me pretty cold, but Woods and their label are the best.

The Return of Phish

I wasn't there, nor will I be there for any of this summer's no doubt sold out series of shows. I haven't listened to the band sincerely since 1999 or so (when I was in 11th Grade). Even then much of that listening was to a degree conditioned by my then-current predicament (I went to a New England Boarding School, where such things have a cache they lack utterly in the concrete jungle).

When I was about fourteen, (lets call it 1995-96), Phish became an important band for me, a touchstone to a whole world that up until that point had been off limits, due to a somewhat conservative upbringing and to a general isolation from the ideals of the sixties (because my parents were too young and grew up in the totally atheistical, hope-free seventies, a situation I am quite happy about, thank you very much).

So Phish was a weird backdoor into an obfuscated world for me, one that hearkened back to all those halcyon days of hedonism, sex, merriment, sex, hedonism, drugs, and merriment.

What I liked about Phish was that they were non-traditional, in as much as they weren't 'top 40' and sterile in the way so much music was to me back then, and they also made gestures towards "jazz,' which in my hyper-educated, hyper-pretentious preteen existence signified a rarefied dignity. Phish were better than Nirvana because they used four part harmony by this sick calculus. I won't say this view was universal among my friends, but I do recall a chum in those days saying that he thought "You Enjoy Myself" was probably the the greatest, most complex piece of music ever composed.

Ironically, at the first Phish concert I went to I turned down an offer of a hit on a joint, so uptight and caught up in austerity was I. But that Phish show was probably the best, as just before my second (and final show) in 1999, my parents caught me and a bunch of friends smoking in the backyard, which effectively ruined the night for me.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying I have a semi-nostalgic-yet-irrevocably-stained-with-regret relationship with Phish, so it was not without a perverse interest that I listened to the (legal, free) bootleg of their first shows in almost five years...

I can't tell if its the rust, or the music, but I'm very underwhelmed. I find it pretty tough going to get through these longer instrumental jams, and the "song" songs sound out of sync and emotionally dead... True believers no doubt would be charitable here, but I am no such a one... This sounds like a bad band playing bad material, and the 'creative' transgressive elements, ie the soloing, jamming etc, are just not good. The world has not been missing this; this is not going to help any of us.

This brings us back to an older discussion, namely, the influence of jam music on the contemporary 'indie rock' DiY Todd P Brooklyn scene. I have previously made the argument about Animal Collective's (non)-similarity to the Grateful Dead... Well here I am going against that grain a bit, as I would say the best jam-oriented event I attended last year was also, strangely, the best event I attended last year, period...

That show was Atlas Sound at Music Hall of Williamsburg (2.24.08). What was great about the show was the way the layered digital synth textures of the Atlas Sound record (Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel). Here is a link to mp3s from a show on the same tour (different day/time but same band, though the MP3 gives no hint of how good the music was and how overpowering where the cascading guitar effects).

This show to me was a hundred times more vibrant than either of the Phish shows I attended as a youth; Phish fans are more like cult worshipers, or Kobe Bryant fans--people divorced form the broader reality in order to experience the benefits of the enclosed space of the devotee. This Atlas Sound show was a pure, unexpected religious experience, not the fore-ordained forced mania of the Phish fiend...

I don't know where I am going with this, but I do know that what made the Atlas Sound show so awesome was the guitar playing of Adam Forkner, the layered, cosmic expansiveness of his delay infused arches. Anyone familiar with Yume Bitsu knows that Adam is a space-rock pioneer Adam is, but this Atlas Sound reaffirmed that idea in the context of the more MBV/Pop sensibility of Bradford Cox's music...

So I'm moving towards a thesis where the best music around combines elements of genres in new and exciting ways, ie some standard line on hybridity that has been de rigeur in academic circles for years... Yawn. But there may yet be more here, and I will plumb those depths. Hoping to get out to some shows soon.