Aug
31
9/9/09
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September 9 already promises to be an exciting day, but it just keeps on getting better. Not only does Beatles Rock Band release that day, but the remastered Beatles albums do as well. Then there’s an Apple event happening which I will likely follow. And the release of the movie 9, which seems like a movie that was made for me. It’s like my birthday, only not.
You excited for any (or all) of these?
May
18
Untitled #23
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Despite nearly 30 years producing music together, or perhaps because of it, The Church, the band you know from “Under the Milky Way”, has just released one of the best albums of its career. Untitled #23, which released May 12 in the US, is a stunning achievement, an album that is a revelation from start to finish, an album that is undeniably the Church and yet is a product of their evolution as a band. It’s rare that I find an album where every song shines, and yet this is one. Without a proper title or even proper cover art, the album lets its songs speak for themselves, and they are relentless, they surround and invade at the same time. But it creates a kind of equilibrium, and you end up feeling like you’re floating. Sometimes in lush, ethereal skies, sometimes in the vast blackness of space, and still others in dense, multicolored seas.
It’s amazing to see a band of their longevity (at least 23 albums) in such top shape. Part of this comes from their proficiency, no doubt, part of it from the confidence that gives them. But I suspect it also has to do with their love of the music. The Church’s heyday (pun intended) was long ago, at least by the measure of their popular success, but they’ve continued to produce great albums and I think that by now they must have given up any real hope of recapturing the profile they once had and simply do it because they play well together. That musical chemistry is readily apparent in this album.
It’s also part of a prolific onslaught from the band. Within the last few months they’ve also released two EPs (Pangaea and Coffee Hounds, both superb) and these come on the heels of solo releases from both Steve Kilbey (Painkiller) and Marty Willlson-Piper (Nightjar). It’s a good time to be a Church fan, but also a good time to become one. All of the albums (though not the EPs) are available from online retailers such as Amazon.com, but also from Second Motion Records as CDs or digital downloads. They’re also on iTunes. I urge you to check them out – at the very least Untitled #23. It deserves a listen.
Aug
22
Me singing
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I debated about posting this, but I wanted to have it handy for myself. It’s currently the only real evidence of me singing that exists anywhere. Please keep in mind that this was at Clarion West, in Seattle, after a night of heavy drinking. My voice was definitely not at its best. And this was taken on a cameraphone by a dear friend.
Oct
28
Before I go into the India experience, I wanted to say something about the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows.
It seems to me that new Radiohead albums are like alien viruses. At first they seem foreign, strange, uncomfortable. But as I listen to them, they work their way inside, rewriting my DNA until they seem like a part of me. This time it took five listens, and then it clicked for me. I couldn’t get the songs out of my head. Not in the way annoying 80s songs stick in your head, but the kind where they just seem to resonate.
My first impression of the album was that there was a lot of space there. A lot of emptiness in between the separate threads of music. While I might amend that assessment a bit, there still seems to be the sense that the music seems to be taking place in a kind of vaccum. For some reason Hail to the Thief brought to mind dark, moonlit forests, the aftermath of fairy tales when all the children have grown up. But In Rainbows seems to hover in indefinite space. There is no “setting” in my mind, which is unusual for an album.
“Nude” was the first stand-out for me, probably because I knew it before from a bootleg. But “Reckoner” soon became that song, the one that seems to connect with me directly. On Hail it was “Sit Down, Stand Up”. On Amnesiac it was “You and Whose Army”. But In Rainbows is a slippery beast. It didn’t take long for other songs to lay their claim on me. I’d wake up each morning in India, a different song from the album playing in my head.
The album will remind me of India now, of course. Radiohead albums have this habit of arriving at interesting times in my life. I first encountered them at a dynamic time in my past, catching all the way up to OK Computer in one go. Kid A will always remind me of my first time in Jamaica, listening to it at night, in the humid air, with the sound and smell of the ocean drifting through the open door. Amnesiac was released before 9/11, but it was only after it, at a particularly turbulent time in my life, when I really immersed myself in it. Hail to the Thief again grabbed me at a time when I was starting a new job, with a broken foot, and right before I got married.
In Rainbows shows signs of some experimentation on the band’s part, but mostly with arrangements and sounds. Thom Yorke seems to be using his voice in different ways. But it still sounds like Radiohead. Almost a little too much for my tastes. By that I mean that there are certain sounds, that we heard on previous albums, that resurface here. Bands have signature sounds, sure, but I would have liked a bit more of a departure.
But I’m hardly disappointed. It’s a good album, and there aren’t any stinkers on it. My only other criticism is that despite the fact that I’ve listened to it in order, it doesn’t feel like an album to me. It feels like a collection of songs. Which makes their argument against releasing it in stores like iTunes seem a little flaccid. Still, I will continue to listen to it like an album, so I suppose that says something.
All in all, it’s a worthy album and addition to their lineup. I’ll likely wear it out soon…
Oct
10
I am currently downloading the new Radiohead release, In Rainbows. I can’t wait to listen to it. If you haven’t heard, the album is available to download from their site and you get to choose what you want to pay for it.
I think that’s well worth it, don’t you?