Radiohead starts recording LP8

[MarkGrace]

So it isn't just limited to basketball.

[TripletDaddy]

Guys, I've been up all night trying to analyze what the cover art and track listings could possibly mean! Here is what I've come up with:

[insert someone else's analysis]

Ah, this is driving me crazy!

[Coastal Ute]

I listen to lots of music and I just thought I'd say this is one of the best things I've heard in a long, long time. Wow. It's going to take me a while to digest this one.

[BoylenOver]

I listen to lots of music and I just thought I'd say this is one of the best things I've heard in a long, long time. Wow. It's going to take me a while to digest this one.

Coastal Ute! I was wondering where you've been.

[MarkGrace]

Guys, I've been up all night trying to analyze what the cover art and track listings could possibly mean! Here is what I've come up with:

[insert someone else's analysis]

Ah, this is driving me crazy!

[MarkGrace]

Prior to this thread I felt there were two guys on this board who had reached "my band can crap on a disc and I'll still buy it and love it" (otherwise known as the Rolling Stones phenomenon) status with Radiohead. I was wrong. I've whittled my list to one.

Why do you say that? You already know I think half of Pablo Honey is terrible.

[MarkGrace]

FlyLo was also a big influence on this record.

It's definitely inspired by Flying Lotus' brand of electronic-jazz.

You could pretty much tell this from the word go.

We came across some interesting tweets from music journalist Atze de Vrieze Today on Flying Lotus’ influence on Radiohead or vice versa. We asked Atze to guest blog his thoughts on The King Of Limbs and Flying Lotus.

“Im trippin out right now.. this radiohead shit is cold! gawd. i need to slap someone in the face .. someone come over.” Flying Lotus kind of lost his mind on Twitter yesterday, and he knew it. “Sorry i gotta tweet thru this radiohead joint”, he apologized. “Its kinda a world event for me.”

Understandable, because the British band quite literally honor the Los Angeles beat producer on their new album The King Of Limbs. Some fans even mistakenly called the new single Flying Lotus instead of Lotus Flower, a Freudian slip the band itself could have invented. The song starts with a minute of electronic sounding rhythms, with a deep, slowly lapsing bass, guitar glitches and distorted handclaps. Only after that minute Thom Yorke starts singing, with his falsetto, with more soul than he usually has.

Last year Flying Lotus had breakthrough with his third album Cosmogramma. He perfected the sound he developed on his first two records, an amalgam of hip hop, bass music and experimental jazz (his great-aunt was Alice Coltrane). It’s a cosmic electronic opera. A layered, intense and totally unique album, and no doubt a big influence for producers in the coming years. Not in the least for Radiohead.

If Lotus Flower doesn’t convince you, just put on Bloom, The King Of Limbs’ opening track. It has a looped piano, jazz drums that sound like samples and that seem to ignore the direction the piano pointed out. A signature Flylo technique. After three minutes, an orchestra is coming up, slowly but overwhelming. Horns and strings it seems, but so distorted they get an extraterrestrial feel. It’s a clear nod to Cosmogramma’s overture. The producer must have felt as if the track was produced just for him. “Fuck.. I was sittin outside in the chair and the speakers said BLOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM #thekingoflimbs pow powpow pow.”

The cross-pollination is easy to substantiate. Their paths crossed continuously in recent years. Flying Lotus remixed Radiohead song Reckoner and Thom Yorke lent his voice to Flylo’s … And The World Laughs With You. Last month, the Radiohead frontman presented an award to the producer at the World Wide Awards, hosted by BBC DJ Gilles Peterson. Backstage after the show he interviewed him. Well, more or less. It’s a safe bet to say new Radiohead track Feral will end up in Flylo’s live set.

But wait, isn’t it the other way around? Aren’t Radiohead the mentors here, Flylo the protege? Contrary rhythms and electronic experiments, isn’t that what Radiohead have been about since the turn of the century? If there’s one record The King Of Limbs builds upon, it’s Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. Flylo’s LA buddy The Gaslamp Killer plays songs from that album in his dj-sets all the time, and in his own work, the influence is undeniable as well.

“For me, OK Computer is not the classic, Kid A is”, Flying Lotus said in and interview I did with him last year, one month before Cosmogramma was released. In his live set that night, he incorporated Idioteque, a classic from that period. “And Amnesiac is my personal favorite. Rhythmic as well as melodic. Interesting rhythmic patterns always attract my attention.”

There are still people who believe Radiohead lost it after OK Computer and everything they release after that was navel-gazing. That Radiohead were trapped in their own world, that the A&R manager of the good old record company was sorely missed. All nonsense. Radiohead have turned away from the mainstream and leave big stadium anthems to Muse and Kings Of Leon, but they have never been blind to what’s happening in the frontline of today’s music. This is how Flying Lotus puts it: “Studentteacherteacherstudent.”

http://www.ateaseweb.com/2011/02/19/flying-lotus-flower-radiohead-vs-the-king-of-beats/

[SteelBlue]

Why do you say that? You already know I think half of Pablo Honey is terrible.

If it makes you feel better I'm using your posts to convince my kid to buy the album. We are in a $9 showdown.

[MarkGrace]

If it makes you feel better I'm using your posts to convince my kid to buy the album. We are in a $9 showdown.

Ha. Other songs by Radiohead I don't like at all: Sulk (the Bends), Morning Bell/Amnesiac (Amnesiac), We Suck Young Blood (Hail to the Thief), Harry Patch (the one-off single that I didn't even listen to more than once). Recent stuff by Thom that I don't like at all: Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses/Old Reckoner, The Hollow Earth.

My thought right now, after listening to the album about 10 times, is that it's not as odd as I believed at first listen. In fact, I think there are certain hallmarks in these songs that were noticeable in some of the stuff Thom and Radiohead have been doing in the years since In Rainbows. Give Up the Ghost, as I already mentioned, has the warm sort of spacey ballad feel like House of Cards. Lotus Flower reminds me quite a bit of the song Hearing Damage, which Thom did for the Twilight movie (a song that I absolutely love, btw). Both Come to Your Senses and Separator echo the cascading guitar apreggios of These Are My Twisted Words. And the precussion in Little by Little (awesome!) sounds very much like some of the heavily percussive takes on The Eraser Thom was doing with Atoms for Peace.

The more I listen to these songs, the more I'm recognizing touchstones from stuff from the last few years. I like the record. The are no moments that I flat out dislike, like those mentioned above, and I'm loving Little by Little, Lotus Flower, and Codex.

[MarkGrace]

Ok, I'm going to run back through the list of songs I posted earlier and see where we ended up. I've updated this once, so the first update is in italics and the second will be in bold.

Come to Your Senses - Jonny may finally get his banjo appearance!
No word since the time I posted about this one, but I still want to hear Jonny get his banjo debut.
No sign of it on the record.

Follow Me Around - Ed said they recently started working on this one again
In addition to Ed mentioning the rehearsals way back when, Thom played this solo at the Latitude festival about a year ago and also played it as part of an impromptu jam with Atoms For Peace. I think it's still in play.
No sign of it on the record.

Spooks - instrumental jam may turn into something more substantial; Jonny seemed a bit disappointed that they didn't work on it more during the last sessions
No sign of it. Apparently this was just a fun little jam and nothing more
No sign of this. Pretty sure nothing is going to ever happen with this.

Super Collider - the piano part sounds pretty great, but we've yet to see a full band version, if they're even planning on one.
Thom played this solo a couple of times during the Atoms For Peace tour. He appears to have added a new coda at the end, so this is clearly something he's still working on and my guess likely to make the album.
No sign of it on the record.

Slave - sent to Nigel to mix during the IR tour. Still unclear if this is a Thom or Radiohead thing.
No word.
Pure speculation because I've never heard Slave, but I think there's an outside chance this became Feral. I know this was a song Thom worked did on his laptop while on tour for In Rainbows and sent to Nixel for mixing, and Feral definitely seems like something Thom could have cut up on computer on his own.

Wake Me - recently soundchecked, sound pretty great in the small snippets I've heard.
Only news since the soundcheck is that Colin mentioned it as one of his favorite new songs in an interview.
No sign of it on the record.

Mornin' Mi Lord - still out there somewhere
Not a peep on this one.
This made the record as Good Morning Mr. Magpie (which was always the alternate title to Mornin' Mi Lord). This being among the candidates was a total guess since they never actually mentioned working on this one, and I was totally shocked when I saw it listed on the tracklist. Based on the early version I never thought I'd like this song, but it's better on the album than I anticipated.

Burn the Witch - this apparently has been done for a while. Will the already legendary song make its debut on LP8?!?
Thom mentioned that Jonny was working on the strings for this at the same time they recorded Harry Patch -- could still be in play
No sign of it on the record.

Old Reckoner - Ed says they are still working with the old version, and if they let that riff die I will not be pleased.
Thom finally released this as a solo song with Jonny also doing some work on it. The awesome guitar riff turned into a bass riff, and the final recorded version was pretty disappointing.
Never warmed up to the recorded version of this. Just don't like what became of it.

Like a Weapon - another recent soundcheck
Still only heard as a faint soundcheck
No sign of it on the record.

Riding a Bullet - see above
See above part II
No sign of it on the record.

Big Boots - as per the initial post, I'm still holding out hope.
Maybe I should let the hope die.
Hope is dead.

True Love Waits - do they take another crack at a full band version?
Thom has played this in full at least three times -- once at Latitude, once at the Cambridge solo gig he did, and once as the intro to Everything In Its Right Place at the show in Prague. He seems to have smoothed out some of the chords and strumming, so maybe he's still tinkering with it -- thematically it really fits the vibe of some of the other new material, and I still really want a studio version to make a record.No sign of it on the record, and unlike my comment above, thematically it wouldn't have fit with what actually did end up on the album.

So, beyond that, we've got a peak at other stuff, which I think I've linked along the way in this thread. This is how I would rank my excitement for them.

1. Give Up the Ghost - this has the potential to be a Radiohead classic if you ask me. The vocal loops are just stunning and the melody has that great Neil Young feel to it.
Made the album under the same title. Really like the recorded version, but think it probably should have been spearated from Codex, since they're the two slowest moments on the album and happen back-to-back

2. Lotus Flower - lyrically one of my favorites in the bunch.
Made the album under the same name and is the lead single. I loved the solo acoustic version, and I like the album version just as much, despite the fact that it doesn't sound anything like I expected.

3. Present Tense - great guitar and vocal song, I think would be served well in a Reckoner type arrangement where everyone else is just adding atmosphere around the guitar and vox.
I think this was easily the most anticipated song by most Radiohead fans. No sign of it on the recod.

4. Wake Me - really love the sort of laid back feel to this one and that little ringing guitar line; another one that has a strong Neil Young vibe to me.
No sign of it on the record. (Oops...this one is also listed above)

5. Skirting On the Surface - another song I really like lyrically
No sign of it on the record.

6. The Daily Mail - appears to be a piano based tune; love the vocal climax.
No sign of it on the record.

7. A Walk Down the Staircase - great bridge on this one, nice atmosphere.
No sign of it on the record.

8. Mouse Dog Bird - another where Thom shows he's experimenting with vocal loops; a lot of people seem to like this one, but it hasn't grabbed me yet.
Appears as the album closer under the title Separator. Like the recorded version more than I did the solo acoustic version.

9. Open the Floodgates - hard to get a feel for this since the version Thom played was so short; I have to believe that with the band there would be more to it, but right now it feels like it would be a "We Suck Young Blood" style thud in terms of the pace of an album.
No sign of it on the record.

Wildcards:

I Froze Up - Kid A era song that Thom played solo during the last year. This song has some huge fans, but I don't love it. If it's back on the radar, I don't see it as an album track.
No sign of it on the record.

Dawn Chorus - in an interview in South America, Thom said this was his favorite of the new stuff he'd been working on. Since it hasn't appeared in solo form yet by this title, part of me wonders if we've already heard it and the name was just changed.
No sign of it on the record.

Codex - some jazz sessions musicians mentioned that they had just recorded a song called Codex with Radiohead (also mentioned I believe an additional two songs, but the names escape me). Nothing more is known about it, and quite possibly this is just the name they used for another song during the sessions.
Made the record under the same name. Might favorite on the album so far.

EDIT: ok, it was one more song, and it was called "Blossom." I think that's quite likely to be a code name for Lotus Flower, which is what led me to believe that Codex was just a "code" name for something else they were doing.
Made the record under the same name.

The puzzling thing is just what happened to all that music? They've been working on this album for three years (they were soundchecking some of these songs and working them out starting on the In Rainbows tour in 2008). They've been recording on and off for over a year and half. And not casual "let's just start and see where this goes" type recording, but actually with Nigel the whole time.

In all that time they came up with 8 songs at 37 minutes? Once of which is an interlude? Seriously? They spent a year on the Kid A/Amnesiac sessions, and came away with 27 songs. From all this recording over the last year and a half they did 8 songs? Where's the rest?

From the 15 or so songs they were known to be working on for this album, 3 made the record. Of the 8 Thom premiered solo at AFP shows and mentioned he was working on "with his other band," only 2 are here.

When These Are My Twisted Words was released, Jonny said it was "one of" the things they'd finished during those sessions. During an interview on the In Rainbows tour in South America, Ed said there was "loads of new stuff." He also said in June of 2010 that they were "weeks away from finishing the new album." That was 8 freaking months ago. There's an article Colin wrote (which I posted in this thread), where he says "we've just completed a new batch of songs" and they were trying to determine how to release them in a music market that had changed since IR. That was over 6 months ago. What the crap have they been doing since then? I know it takes a while to mix, master, track list (the track listing for IR took them 6 weeks alone -- most of the time spent with Thom trying to convince the rest that Down is the New Up should be on the album), and getting everything ready, but something just isn't lining up here.

Some of the stuff I posted last night was an incoherent ramble on my BBerry, but I just get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of this thing. There has to be more out there that they've recorded, and a decent amount at that. And I really see the "eps as limbs" thing as realistic. They talked forever about wanting to do ep's to explore different styles, but not commit to them over a full record. Thom said they have a 70s disco track they've been working on; they obviously can't find a place for Burn the Witch; etc. I just think it make some sense for them to do this album as the base of something and then start adding around in a way they've always talked about.

Some are speculating (this one actually wasn't my theory ) that there might be another 7-8 sort of short album like this one on the horizon as a companion. A music industry news site in the UK posted a rumor that the band wasn't going to tour yet because they're already working on the follow-up to TKOL. I doubt it's a proper follow-up, as I really think they have to have at least a similar amount of material already recorded.

Guess we'll see what happens. For now I'm digging TKOL.

[Surfah]

This thread is unintentionally hilarious.

DDD, I checked out Pole music. Yeah, that guy you went to the show with was a dickhead.

[falafel]

This thread is unintentionally hilarious.

DDD, I checked out Pole music. Yeah, that guy you went to the show with was a dickhead.

Sent from my Sprint EVO 4G

[BoylenOver]

MG, does the old Reckoner have the chorus that goes, "Reckoner, bah bah bah" to a heavier guitar line?

[MarkGrace]

MG, does the old Reckoner have the chorus that goes, "Reckoner, bah bah bah" to a heavier guitar line?

Yeah. It dates to somewhere around Kid A/mnesiac, or at least I think it does since the only available video of it (in the full band incarnation -- Thom has played it solo on acoustic) comes from 2001.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_3R2-TIJk"]YouTube - Unreleased song by Radiohead - Reckoner[/nomedia]

The band was working on it during the In Rainbows sessions, and there was a portion of the bridge they really liked and decided to spin into a new song. That became the Reckoner we know on IR.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLVA7Ap1vkQ"]YouTube - Reckoner - Radiohead live from the basement[/nomedia]

The old version remained a work in progress, and the band intended on doing something with it at some point. It was rather surprisingly released by Thom under the name "FeelingPulledApartByHorses" (the intro lyric) as part of a 12" single with the Hollow Earth -- the latter being a holdover from The Eraser sessions. The heavy guitar riff became a bass riff, and the "pa pa pa" chrous was gone. Or, it was greatly diminished. I haven't listened to it forever, and he may do it faintly somewhere in there.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWt-Vw9VkAE"]YouTube - Thom Yorke - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses (new 12'' feat. Jonny Greenwood)[/nomedia]

Being played live with Atoms for Peace and featuring some clasically awesome dance moves by Thom: [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlvQYbs9s"]YouTube - Atoms For Peace @ Fuji Rock '10 - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses[/nomedia]

I've always been disappointed by how the original version ended up.

[landpoke]

Am I the only one who couldn't name a radiohead song if you held a gun to my kids' heads? Are they that band whose lead singer is married to Gwenyth Paltrow? The one who makes the same song over and over and over again?