RADIOHEAD
In Rainbows
(ATO Records)
1/2
Radiohead’s latest album, In Rainbows, was initially
released, as you may have heard, in a rather unorthodox fashion.
Opposing views asserted that their methods were merely novel or
industry-revolutionary, and both held some credence. Whether or not
they have succeeded in downsizing the monumental anticipation that
meets the release of one of their albums—a goal they have been
discussing since around Kid A —In Rainbows stands as the next chapter in the Radiohead canon, possibly the most
fervently beloved body of work of any contemporary band.
At show-and-prove time then, In Rainbows is a great
work if not necessarily a collection of great songs. The band have become truly masterful at what they do; the beauty of the
production and attention to detail invested in this record are heroic
and, at times, stunning. There are a few resplendently great
moments—opener “15 Step” finds them in more ebullient and
rhythmically intricate form than ever; “Faust ARP” lilts with a Joni
Mitchellesque ease; and the final cut, “Videotape,” wades in the same
haunting, death-lit waters as Amnesiac‘s “Pyramid Song.” The
record’s high point by far comes with “Nude,” a new rendering of old
bootleg favorite “Big Ideas” that
unfolds majestically.
The rest of the album’s songs, however, are pleasant but not
threaded with the same moments of ecstatic drama present in the band’s
greatest works. The second disc of bonus material (only officially
available with the purchase of the album’s deluxe discbox version) is
stricken with inconsistency, veering wildly from the excellent,
string-tingled “Down Is the New Up” to the regrettably
Killers-reminiscent rocker “Bangers and Mash” to the undemanding but
pretty “4 Minute Warning.” Still, compared to most major-label rock
bands that have made it to their seventh album, Radiohead are,
artistically speaking, doing wonderfully—one just yearns for a
little more of that old black magic.
SAM MICKENS
THE
HELIOCENTRICS
Out There
(Stones Throw)
1/2
With all the goodness Stones Throw Records served up in 2007, it’s
no wonder their most interesting release went mostly unnoticed. The
L.A.-based tastemakers pushed the leading edge of hiphop with solid
albums from polymath beat conductor Madlib, his Hair-sampling
younger brother protégé Oh No, and others. Their
masterpiece of the year, though—the record that slinks past genre
and era into the realm of pure groove—is the Heliocentrics’
Out There.
An eight-piece collective from London, the Heliocentrics are
something of an enigma. They’re led by drummer Malcolm Catto,
reportedly a longtime friend of DJ Shadow (it’s said the two go
toe-to-toe as obsessive crate diggers with absurd record collections).
Catto has played custom beats for Madlib samples, the Heliocentrics
play on a track from Shadow’s last album, and this debut took four
years to finish. It’s a great backstory that hints at the brand of
hazy, complex, beat-forward space jazz the Heliocentrics conjure. The
album is the most compelling electro-jazz record since Cinematic
Orchestra’s Every Day; it’s exactly what John McEntire’s Bumps
project—a 2007 misfire from Stones Throw—should’ve
been.
If the Heliocentrics’ name speaks to Catto’s Sun Ra devotion, the
music’s immediate swirl of chattering percussion, sinuous reeds and
horns, and slow-simmering African rhythms are straight-up proof. The
update here is Catto’s drumming—pugilistic, usually snapping on a
high hat and snare break. It’s pure hiphop, the true-school stuff of
Stones Throw, beholden to 1970s soul-jazz cats like Bernard Purdie and
Idris Muhammad. That hard-swinging syncopation shifts and stutters but
never lets down, lubricating these diffuse, swaying melodies with a
slick rhythmic sheen. Where rhythm and melody come together—in
the cosmic funk of “Distant Star,” the buzzy downtempo smokeout
“Untitled,” the gorgeous “Winter Song”—sublimity occurs. These
songs radiate with crystalline guitars and sitars and synths like
morning light. Throughout, space-age vocal samples and sound effects
evoke a retrofuturistic vision rendered into a wry, self-aware
soundtrack to a moment that’s not quite then, not quite now,
not
quite later.
Like much of Sun Ra’s output, Out There is too long, too
dense, too full of ideas to fully digest. It’s a collusion of art and
science, a cool-as-fuck fantasy more vast than a mere album of music.
JONATHAN ZWICKEL
RIVERS CUOMO
Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
(Geffen)
If you want to convince your unknowing friend that Weezer’s infamous
frontman Rivers Cuomo is (or used to be) a genius pop songwriter, buy
them a copy of Weezer’s self-titled debut—aka “the Blue
Album”—or Pinkerton, because Alone isn’t for
those who are still deciding where (or if) Cuomo belongs in their life.
These 18 tracks are the rough drafts of uncompleted songs, early demos
of Weezer tunes, and loose constructions of musical thoughts that Cuomo
has been hoarding for as
long as 15 years.
But should you already have a weakness for (or an obsession with)
the man’s ability to craft a charming and catchy pop tune, you’ll
appreciate the hints of magic that appear through the collection’s veil
of lo-fi sloppiness.
“Lover in the Snow” (1997) is my favorite. Though Cuomo admits the
whole song is “fantasy,” “Lover in the Snow” is an upbeat, simplistic
guitar/tambourine tune about seeing a past love with someone new, and
the song is as vivid as anything the band have ever released. And
unlike Weezer’s current inclination to rock, 1994’s “Longtime Sunshine”
is all piano, drums, and clarinet. A slow waltz, the bittersweet song
confesses desires to run away and start over. Other gems include “Wanda
(You’re My Love),” the love song that predated “You Gave Your Love to
Me Softly”; “Crazy One,” about a girl regrettably dumped; and “Chess,”
the song that saved “the Blue Album.”
Thanks to Cuomo’s candid liner notes, we’re given a brief history of
each song—where he was, what he was thinking, why the song is
only appearing for the first time now; the stories are quick but
endearing. And they also reveal that he’s a little weird, he falls in
love quickly, and he’s not very good at rapping (but only a n00b
wouldn’t already be fully aware of all those facts).
Most importantly, for fans who have been less than impressed with
Weezer’s watered-down efforts of this century, Alone‘s crop of
fresh but familiar songs will take you back to a time you may have been
missing, a time when Cuomo could connect like no other songwriter.
MEGAN SELING
Girl Scouts
Wu-Tang Clan
Salvation Army
Patty La Belle’s Choir
