At first I thought I was looking at Billy Corgan,

but then I realized that it was the drummer of my most beloved band. Phil Selway I guess has been working on a new solo album and he’s doing some touring around Europe right now and this clip is from an Italian show I believe. I have no idea what this song says about Phil as a member of Radiohead but I’m not going to really think about it too hard and neither should you really. It’s an okay song and kind of just interesting. If anything, I hope we hear some more of Phil’s voice on Radiohead’s next record. That would be cool. Anyway, enjoy!

He also pulled out some old songs only ever heard once or twice. Apparently it was a hell of a show and to quote an audience member, “Thom’s gone wild for looping.”

This is good news for those who eagerly await Radiohead’s eighth album and follow up to 2007′s In Rainbows. With Thom Yorke announcing a US tour with his newly dubbed but not exactly new band, Atoms for Peace, whose members Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, and Mauro Refosco, it is likely that Radiohead’s new record is done and will be out soon (is this wishful thinking? Yes, but not completely).

NEW TRACKS!
“Mouse Dog Bird”

“Give Up Ghost”

“A Pigs Ear/Daily Mail”

The total setlist for the night:

“The Clock”

“The Eraser”

“Weird Fishes”

“The Daily Mail”

“Pyramid Song”

“Harrowdown Hill”

“Lotus Flower”

“Give Up The Ghost”

“These Are My Twisted Words”

“I Froze Up”

“Like Spinning Plates”

“Black Swan”

“Cymbal Rush”

“Videotape”

“Mouse Dog Bird”

“Reckoner”

“Airbag”

“Atoms For Peace”

“True Love Waits”

Sorry for letting my Radiohead fanboyness out.

George

The newest Gorillaz track, “Stylo,” leaked on Tuesday (listen to it here). It reeks of 80’s pop overtones and features the soulful singing Bobby Womack and the lyrical genius of Mos Def. This leak came just 32 days before the release of the Gorillaz new album, Plastic Beach, which comes out March 9. The album as a whole looks like it’s gonna be super killah. Everything from the lineup of musical guests to the album’s 60’s visual aesthetic is making me countdown the days till its release (as Damon Albarn is letting you do here).

What a kickass cover

In other news, the recent devastation in Haiti has gotten loads of musicians and artists trying their hardest to do something good. One of these bands is Radiohead, who in the midst of recording their new album (YAYAYAY), are going to play a show in LA. They are auctioning off their tickets starting tonight (Thursday Jan. 21) and ending Saturday with all proceeds going to relief efforts. The actual show is on Sunday. Having tried to get Radiohead tickets before for past shows, I can imagine that prices are going to be INCREDIBLE but at least this time it’s for a good cause.  Anyway, the following for our blog in LA isn’t huge so it’s unlikely that most of you reading this will actually consider going to the show.

Regardless, we should all do what we can to help, and we should all be very, very excited for Plastic Beach.

Consider this list my “favorite new tracks of 2009” list.

Click here to listen to the selected tracks

Imagine this.

Leaning backwards in your chair to the point where it tips over, but instead of you hitting the ground with a hard thud, you go right through the ground and you get swallowed up and dropped into a dark cushiony endless abyss. What, this has never happened to you? Well it did to me, the first time I listened to Radiohead’s “These Are My Twisted Words.” From a purely tonal standpoint, the guitars present a smear of notes down a descending line that exist outside the realm of conventional tonality. From a more textural standpoint, the guitars layer the smear on thick with heavy delay and other time based effects.

To break down the instrumentation, it’s nothing out of the ordinary -especially for Radiohead: guitars, drums, thom’s voice, bass. The difference is what Radiohead manages to do with these instruments. We’re not talking about virtuoso technique or any truly incredible display of musicianship. The magic here is in the composition and the recording. Like I said, “These Are My Twisted Words” really delivered me to a place I’ve never been. Radiohead showed, through this song, that there are still sonic realms where standard rock instrumentation hasn’t been yet.

This is what listening to these songs looks like (taken from the inside of my car during a carwash).

There are hardly any recognizable instruments or components in Animal Collective’s “Guys Eyes” from their latest album Merriweather Post Pavilion. Regardless the song is something that Brian Williams Wilson (nice catch) would have been happy to have produced if he was still with the Beach Boys today. My sister said it perfectly when she that it was like Animal Collective created a new color. It was that groundbreaking for me when I finally figured out what the hell Animal Collective was. “Guys Eyes” has these beautiful vocal harmonies that swarm around like well choreographed bees. Any singular bee is hardly distinguishable from the rest but the result is a spinning pattern of thick vocal counterpoint. In this way, the only recognizable component of the song, the singing, becomes a mess in itself. This is the kind of mess that will make me listen to a song a hundred times over without ever deciphering the mess.

I’m going to throw Grizzly Bear’s “Slow Life” featuring Victoria Legrand into this list because it had a similar affect on me as the previous two songs. The moral of the story I guess is auditory experience. However, there have been some songs in the past that have had life changing effects for me in terms of how I listen to music. First is Beck’s 2002 song “Paper Tiger” form his album Sea Change. The song perfectly melts together the timbres of a guitar and an orchestra so that their interplay and “counterplay” creates a conversational effect that makes the song so bold. Lastly is the song “Oceania” from Björk’s 2004 album Medúlla. The album is an almost purely vocal album and this song is composed of a combination of Björk’s live vocals, and a professional beatboxer. Additionally, an indiscernible combination of sampled voices and a female choir take the part that a synthesizer would normally have. This kind of seamless mix is a strange sensation.

Well I hope that by sharing these tracks with you, you too can expand your musical palette.

Thanks and with love,

George