Once again, another album randomly chosen from about 180 CDs in Cullen Wade's basement. If you are confused about what's happening or why it's happening on this blog, click here for an intro.
WE'RE NOT SCAREMONGERING...THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING...
WE'RE NOT SCAREMONGERING...THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING...HAPPENING...
Every news broadcaster & public official who hasn't screamed that at the top of their segments every day of the 21st century has failed us.
I have a vivid memory of being 15 on a road trip with my parents, listening to Kid A on my Discman in the backseat when "Treefingers" came on & as I watched the landscape stretchblur sounds past the window in the colors soaking my headphones something changed in me. It was one of those coveted musical moments where text, context & headspace line up & you become a lightning rod. It had taken a few listens for Kid A to click, & that's part of the reason I am doing this series: to try to revive those older, patient listening habits where I waited for an album to unfold itself to me. After that moment in the backseat, my only disappointment with Kid A was that I hadn't gotten the 1st pressing with the secret booklet under the CD tray like my friend at school had.
The insert I did get was great enough though, a huge 28-panel gallery of abstract frozen landscapes, postmodern scissored glaciers translucent scratch forests dynamite torn geometry, utility gibbets & yawning caves the color of television tuned to a dead channel. So when a sneak attack snowstorm hit my town, snatched away our electricity & made my yard look like the ice mountains on the album cover, I gladly sat down in the dark to listen to Kid A by battery power, not even mad that the random number generator picked 2 Radiohead albums for the first 3 series entries.
Nigel Godrich & Radiohead push each other further than on OK Computer, pulling in new influences from Boards of Canada, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, Brian Eno & David Bowie's Low. Synths, samples, sines & signals drift above the sonic fog to make themselves known briefly before floating back down into the soup. The band even brings back their signature 3-guitar attack on the more rock-focused midsection duo of "Optimistic" & "In Limbo." This isn't the kind of record where you pick favorite tracks--it's best experienced as a whole--but aside from the transformative "Treefingers," I kept coming back to the icy mood-setting opener "Everything in Its Right Place" & the somewhere-between-dream-&-nightmare shuffle of "How to Disappear Completely," supposedly drawn from Michael Stipe's advice to Thom about how to handle rock stardom.
The Bends to Kid A run is pretty flawless, so picking a favorite is impossible & kind of pointless, but this isn't not the best Radiohead album ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment