The King Of Limbs

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

And we’re off.

Opening with Bloom - which sounds at first like the theme music for Casualty or some other hospital-based TV show – the initial sound of the album feels ominous, but this is very quickly overtaken by the glowing sound of a repeated, circular echo in the background.  High in the mix the band has chosen to put the marching beat.  It lands slightly across the rest of the production.  So, a dichotomy already, with the gloaming production set against this fairly measured, dictatorial strait-jacket beat. 

A theme - one that will become familiar as the album progresses - is introduced to us early on; the idea of water and all things aquatic which are referenced in a number of other songs.  After tipping their hat to their newly-published newspaper, the ‘universal sigh’, Thom Yorke goes on to sing of the ocean blooming.  This song then, in its theme and aura seems to be paying some homage to their previous record, In Rainbows.  Track 4 from that album, Weird Fishes, was dominated by positive, sun-drenched ocean-gazing and Bloom could potentially be considered its step sister.  As Thom Yorke’s falsetto rises in the melody at one point, it is reminiscent of a similar passage in Nude from In Rainbows.  It feels quite the delight to experience this new Radiohead album – or indeed any Radiohead album – with an opening track so radiant and positive, even if tinged with a little melancholy. 

Before we’ve had time to recover from such a strikingly rich and resonant opener, we are thrown headfirst into Morning Mr Magpie.  This track, with its minimalist, stubby cyclic guitar patterns and Yorke singing like a peeved schoolboy (‘you stole it all, give it back’), is more like the opener from In Rainbows, ‘Body Snatchers’, aggressive and brooding.  Whilst the chorus melody here is sing-song-y in part and quite the tease, there is undoubtedly a dark cloud hanging over that simply can’t be ignored...even more so as the track swells in the middle and sounds like it’s close to combustion. 

A funky, dark number is Track 3, ‘Little by Little’, not dissimilar to ‘Down is the new up’ from the B Sides of In Rainbows.  The band continue with the conflict of echoing vagueness in the production against Jonny Greenwood’s guitar stabs and counter melodies which are stark and high in the mix.  There’s something seedy about the way Thom sings this melody, sliding down in playful semitones to the lyrics ‘little by little, by hook or by crook, I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt’.

Radiohead adopt a contemporary production style for Feral, the fourth track from the album.  Aptly titled, given that any vocals the track does have are basically unintelligible and are the result of the band having chopped up and distorted Yorke’s voice.  The result is an animalistic, rudimentary soundscape with possible tips to Burial in the backing tunnel-channelled bassy vocals.  Perhaps no surprise, given Thom Yorke recently collaborated on a track with Burial and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet).  Much of the production on the album up to this point has been spunky and contemporary, with the tempo of urgency and vitality.  More than anything, the previous three tracks have sounded extremely urban.

Track 4 is the first single from the album, Lotus Flower.  There is a change here, with Yorke opting for a more classic melody, fitting in more lyrics rather than snapping statements here and there that we’ve become used to.  This track is certainly much more diatonic than its predecessor, Feral.   Notice in the chorus a real sense of vulnerability in Yorke’s voice, struggling at the top ends of his falsetto above the melancholic sevenths that otherwise permeate.  Typically, Yorke returns on this track with a real clawing melody that can only serve to tug on the heart strings in all its yearning.  The close of Lotus Flower marks the beginning of a new vibe in this album, which is omnipresent in the piano based Track 6, Codex.

Codex is so full of plaintive emotion that it’s quite difficult to write anything about it without sounding sickeningly earnest.  We’ve been transported to Venus in this track so it seems, with ultra feminine, understated production providing a quiet backdrop for Yorke’s voice to take centre stage for the first time in the album to this extent.  This track signals a very sudden and dramatic shift in gear on the album that feels almost a touch jarring and could be considered a little premature.  It seems that Radiohead manage to get away with it simply due to the fact Codex is quite simply stunningly moving and meditative.  At the close of this circular track, we have been whole-heartedly sucked in.  Mesmeric, Yorke uses his voice for what it does best...allowing you to trust in it, he convinces ‘no one gets hurt’.  The echoing brass intertwines its counter-melody so it, along with Yorke’s voice, becomes a graceful, poised elegy.

Moreover, Codex marks a return to the water theme of the opener, Bloom.  Yorke sings ‘the water’s clear and innocent’.  This painfully simple song slowly introduces itself as a welcome break from the angles that drove the beginning of the album and it seems we’ve left the urban sprawl behind and find ourselves emerging from a darkness. 

We emerge musically into Give Up The Ghost which could be pinned as a country song on first hearing.  Sweet major key signals a return of plain positivity, like the arrival of a peaceful morning but Yorke still appears wary, repeating the line ‘don’t hurt me’ as a backing vocal that is present throughout the entire track.  This track, as well as the final track, Separator, signals the calm after the storm, and rarely do we have the pleasure of hearing Radiohead so content. 

And so it is we move into the closing track of the album, Separator, which kicks off with a no- nonsense driven beat.  At this point, the album starts to make sense as a conceptual work of art.  It seems that we have witnessed a problem, and since that point we have experienced it in all its glory/turmoil, before dealing with it and now we pull ourselves round and set out again with determination but without the baggage of too much heavy emotion.  It feels like reaching some sort of acceptable peace in circumstances otherwise out of our control.    

In a sense, I can’t help but feel that I’ve come away from this album feeling slightly perplexed... in comparison with previous albums which have contained real stand out, genre defining tracks, it doesn’t feel like The King Of Limbs measures up in quite the same way.  Bloom, Lotus Flower and Codex are undoubtedly beautifully crafted songs, and much of the surrounding tracks are stunning dance-based production gems which can’t be ignored but there is no Pyramid Song, no Reckoner, no Everything In Its Right Place, no Idioteque (and the list could go on). 

But therein, perhaps, lies the real point of this album, the real worth of The King Of Limbs.  It symbolises some sort of journey; a quasi-spiritual one at that.  Taken as a whole and as it should, as a piece of work comprising seven tracks, it is still forward thinking, contemporary, genuine and bold.  Furthermore, it is also tinged with melancholy and emotion, thus carrying weight in both its humanity and technicality – elements simply vital to its affect and to the effect of any music of worth. 

Maybe expectations were cruel and we were expecting a new Amnesiac or something branching into further new territory?  For after all, Radiohead are the band that we often all desperately rely on for this kind of progression whilst retaining accessibility.  In  essence, The King Of Limbs hasn’t moved too far from the sound and ambience that comprised In Rainbows.  But the real point here is that the music we discover on this album would almost certainly be considered extremely unique, ballsy and thoughtful had it been released by a new kid on the block.  It is all too easy to undervalue the innovation and guts on The King Of Limbs because – and in some ways, unfortunately – we have come to expect nothing less from Radiohead.              

 

Ears Burning Music Review

WEEK ONE:  Beginning Mon 21st Feb '11.

Gold Panda - I particularly like the track 'Marriage' after having heard it on Zane Lowe's show.  Should that put me off?! No, course not.  Gold Panda is one of a growing number of male producers set to sail into a slightly more mainstream acceptance flow I imagine this year and he deserves that recognition.  The rest of his 'Lucky Shiner' album is similarly strong, upbeat, positive and glitchy all at once.   

Group Love - 'Colours' - This track stood out from others, namely because it made me realise how much I've been craving GUITARS.  Much of the hyped, in-yer-face music being thrust down throats at the moment is a certain kind of electronica, with the kind of restraint that makes you think you need to be aloof to be deemed 'cool'.  Whilst I'm a fan of James Blake, for example - and the emergence of certain dub-step artists is a positive thing - I miss these kind of thick and heavy guitar riffs....in a similar vein, I've enjoyed listening to....

Yuck.  Cajun Dance Party were peers of Bombay Bicycle Club a few years ago, both North London bands, but CDP disappeared without trace, despite clear indications they could go far....dreamy, teenage guitar-based indie-pop....yes, we've heard it all before perhaps....but now a number of the original CDP members return with Yuck. 
'The Base Of A Dream Is Empty' and all its dreamy tiramisu is certainly refreshing in a climate of restraint and 'less is more' that's going on.  A touch rippy of Bombay Bicycle Club?  Jury is still out on the latter.

In the classical vein....having seen the remake of Brighton Rock recently, I have researched the original score composer, Martin Phipps.  There were moments in the film where the music was slightly drab and seemed to contribute only to increasing 'doom' and melodrama.  Conversely, there where moments where the music was painful in its beauty and measure.  I would suggest listening to his piece 'No Ring' from the soundtrack, where you can enjoy the innocent sounds of the Brighton Festival Youth Chorus alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra.  Phipps' use of sparse and almost imperceptible drones alongside these angelic voices, free of vibrato or affectation, makes for something quite stunning.  Something quite pure and vulnerable. 

Delaying Gratification

Whilst scurrying around at work last night, I was hit by sudden thoughts, a bit like being pinched by your own mind when there's something important to think or write about. 
Needless to say, I was the recipient of some bizarre looks when I wrote down on my waitressing pad said thoughts, which included 'chairoscuro' and 'delaying gratification'....Can't blame the customers entirely - after all,  they're certainly not the usual names of world wines you'd happen across on any typical restaurant’s wine list! 

Delaying Gratification, however, is a term over which I have mused for some time now, having first come across it as a philosophical notion in M. Scott Peck's 'A Road Less Travelled'.  This book was described by my highly intelligent Swedish housemate as 'the Bible' when I'd suggested she read it and she'd suffered the next day, having stayed up all night, eager to learn more with each page turn. 

Delaying Gratification is, I imagine, a difficult thing to put into practice for most.
Certainly for me it is something with which I have struggled over time.  The notion of delaying gratification  means quite literally what it says....to wait rather than to jump....to allow yourself to build up to something important rather than grabbing at it impulsively... it can be extended and applied to a vast number of circumstances in a day, let alone a lifetime.

Delaying Gratification could be, for example....a child on christmas day being asked by his/her parents to wait before greedily ripping open their presents from under the tree.  It could be as simple as waiting for your family to all take their seats at the dinner table before hungrily tucking into dinner. 

On a vague level, it could be - when asked whether you'd prefer the good or the bad news first, always opting for the bad.  Challenging yourself to wait for the good and knowing that when indeed the 'good' is reached or allowed, the pleasure will be all the more sumptuous.

Delaying Gratification for some people could even extend to the moment of orgasm, for example....  'Nearly there so wait a bit will you.....(2 mins later).... Sloooow down, I’m not readddddy yet!!'.  You simply KNOW that by waiting and savouring that wait, the prize will come and the seeping feeling will be, without doubt, worth the wait.  (Mind you, that may all depend on the circumstance...)

In music, it is particularly apt, whether composing or listening.  Philip Glass, an American composer specialising in the genre of minimalism, is the veritable master of delaying gratification and surely he knows it all too well.  His work, 'Company', written for the medium of string quartet or string orchestra, is a tour de force of delayed gratification.  The piece originated as instrumental music for Fred Neumann's adaptation of Beckett's prose text of the same name  and  is comprised of four short, doom-laden  movements. 

Glass cunningly employs repeating rhythmic ostinatos as the foundation for much of this music, coupled with illuminating shafts of tonal colour that penetrate the stoical  militancy of these underlying repeated cells.

Once your ear has become accustomed to this repetition and your mind has accepted (perhaps reluctantly at first) that this is what you are 'stuck with'...only then does the real beauty of delaying gratification  in this type of music really come into its own.  Having played the waiting game, and resigned yourself in doing so, when small alterations make themselves known, your ears prick up all the more than if you were listening to, say, music with gross harmonic progression.

Whilst there are sudden wave like pushes and pulls of rhythm and orchestration in this piece, Glass always brings us back to the start.  To our familiar and comforting ostinatos.  To what we know and to where we feel safe.  These brief excursions represent real beauty in the music and  furthermore perhaps mirror  life in a sense.  An excursion into the unknown or the reckless or surprising is a welcome break from the mundanity and safety of our daily lives.  And though exciting at the time (and much needed), the relief of returning to our safety nets is what really brings the greatest of sensations, the greatest of peace.

In a similar vein, the recent release of Radiohead’s new album ‘The King of Limbs’ has posed a challenge for me in my own delaying of gratification.  The undeniable and pushy hype surrounding this release – the band’s first album in three years since their 2007 ‘In Rainbows’ – has incited in me much stress and desperation to hear the finished product.  To get my dirty little mitts on the album and have my piece of their musical and internet-overload  pie.  Having indulged myself firstly by reading some primary reviews of the work, I realised that by subsequently  listening with such fervour and with such expectation  my hopes of something ‘godly’ would inevitably be dashed.  Rather, sit back and wait patiently.  Pick a time to really congratulate yourself in your self-control by sitting alone, in your favourite spot, with no time constraints, and give it your full attention.  Be clear and listen with that clarity in mind.    

Of course, it is a constant struggle for any individual to attempt continual delayed gratification.  There are times when we want to scream and shout, to act purely on impulse like animals....to execute things recklessly, to be scandalous, to indulge in the verboten....

And blame we should not....not ourselves nor others....for at least in attempting the delaying of gratification  we are, at the very least, aware of the need to harness our selfishness and teenage greed.  Rather, then, we should congratulate ourselves on the counts where we do succeed and revel in the serenity and achievement that the choice of delay delivers - at long last.

Bibliography:

Cage, John – Violin Concerto, Prelude and Dance from Akhnaten, Company (Ulster Orchestra)
M. Scott Peck – A Road Less Travelled
     

Seaside Requiem

Return and you shall find my room empty

No stone left unturned

Stains, faint smells, Tarnish

A knot in the stomach

Butterflies galore

A kiss lingers on my damp palm

Before it is blown into the ether

The past in a bubble

Not visible

Goodbye