Continued...
Bit of fiddling with wires going on here, but I think we're just about ready to rock. Bit of an accident with a banana slowed us down for a moment.
Curses! NME are about a minute ahead of us.
John Robinson says he's "agreed to something" and is importing now.
We're off! tinkling piano loop and heavily chopped edits, sounds like someone's Warp subscription brought them a couple of Flying Lotus records last year. "Bloom", by the way.
I was playing "In Rainbows" this morning, and I was reminded how much one of the highlights of that album is the drumming. Feeling it again here. As on "Lotus Flower", Yorke feels subtly processed. Liking this a lot.
Wow, dense. A lot of layered orchestral passages now, pretty amazing. Just looked at the tracklisting - quite a short album. Eight tracks, as rumoured, but nothing longer than 5 minutes 20.
Anyone else got this yet? "Morning Mr Magpie" has identifiable guitars, and this kind of ominous funk undertow. Lots of looming, ascending atmospherics kicking in now. I'm going to say the vibe thus far is a kind of beatific hyperactivity.
Apologies if I'm getting carried away by the whole Eventness of this, but fucking hell it's good, and I write as someone who was pretty equivocal about Radiohead until "In Rainbows". Maybe I'm just a sucker for internet kerfuffle.
"Little By Little". Some kind of eldritch jangle going on here, awkwardly tuning, very fragile-sounding, accentuated by the radical editing that seems to be going on. Again, I'm feeling Flying Lotus (who I've just recalled had Thom Yorke on "Cosmogramma"). Maybe Prefuse, too: those LA aesthetic beatmakers that I guess he may have been mixing with during the Atoms For Peace thing.
A hint of older Radiohead in this one, as it evolves, like some ghostly, fidgety evocation of something from "OK Computer". Again, though, they seem to be obsessively - and fruitfully, I'd say - pulling back from any obvious anthemics. The power is insidious, cumulative, anything but blustery.
"Feral" now. Back to the sliding breaks, super-neurotic rhythms. Yorke's voice is ultra-processed and disorienting. I feel somewhat obliged to mention dubstep at this point - Burial's dystopian soundscapes yada yada - but really they seem much more locked into that evolving Warp continuum, rooted back in their love for Autechre.
I know this one, it's that old favourite, "Lotus Flower". Lotus, Flying Lotus - am I being a bit of a stuck record here? It's the hit. I think one of the things I liked about "In Rainbows" was how Yorke's voice seemed more relaxed, less self-conscious, less histrionic. He really sounds soulful here. Interesting how hooky the song sounds second time round. Is it closer to the vibe of "The Eraser", perhaps?
"Codex" starting as the obligatory piano ballad, but there's all this subtle processing going on, which'll doubtless bed in on future listens. Apologies for not mentioning any of the lyrics, by the way; I'll try and keep updating this as the day goes on and we listen to the record some, maybe in a less superficial way.
Again, ten years ago "Codex" would have been so pumped up, so fraught with a sense of its own importance. Now the way Radiohead seem to approach everything is to keep their music on such a discreet level, with microscopic tonal shifts providing a more mature and satisfying kind of drama. Greenwoodish orchestrations I think.
