Personal Therapy

I had a lot of time to burn today. I accompanied my wife to school and waited outside each of the classrooms and played on my ipod or listened to music. During her last class, I was sleepy and relaxed and her class lasted around an hour fortyfive, so it felt like a good time to get into a set of really good songs. As usually happens when I have the chance to really focus on a bunch of music, I usually switch from Radiohead song to Radiohead song, takingin the unique majesty and genius of each composition. I have yet to meet anyone else in my life who loves this band as I do, so often I feel as though I lack a proper outlet with which to share my thoughts and feelings on their oh-so-miraculous tunes. This is a band that has shifted styles in a big way over the years, from the early inverted arena-rock feel that turned the popular U2 sound on its head, to the progressive dub-step sound they seem to be leaner toward these days. And yet I still manage to fall in love with each of their albums.

Along come bands that seem to be the next big thing. The bands that really seem to "get it" in ways that seem illusive to most other similar groups. These are the U2s, the Nirvanas, the Metallicas that are typically embraced publicly and critically. Not only do they practically redefine popular music by creating new genres, but they make it look so effortless. Radiohead has continuously remained a part of said group since 1994 by releasing a remarkable stream of superb albums the likes of which hasn't been seen for decades. They're like the Pixar of the music world. When a new Radiohead album comes out, it isn't a question of whether or not you should buy it, but how quickly and efficiently you can get into your hands and coming out your speakers.

In honor of this band that continues to astound me and the music world, here's a link to my favorite "live" performance ever. It's just a live recording of Radiohead playing in the studio, so there's no audience. But it's live in that there are no second takes or post-processing or any of that nonsense that tends to remove some of the magic.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8byXSML4bY

The Birth of a Blog (and its subsequent evolution into what it is today)

Sleigh Bells

When I decided to start blogging again, my intention was to simply create an outlet into which I could pour my thoughts and feelings about everything. I tried this in the past, semi-successfully creating a blog which contained around two posts per month, each one written with the finesse and passion one would expect from an undergraduate research paper. The problem was that I started said blog during a time in which blogging was not only fashionable, but necessary, at least according to the perception of the trend-setters of the day who were busy riding the wave of social networking, youtube, and DIY everything.

And so I couldn't remain committed to a project that I didn't fully believe in. As interested as I was in being on top of what was new and hip at the time, ultimately I can only commit myself to endeavors that I have a passion in. Examples: my wife, my education, writing (only if I like what I'm writing about), etc. You get the idea. Yet even though I considered writing to be one of my primary talents and passions, my familiarity with the world of blogging was based on what I saw in the blogs of family members. A lot of people in my family had blogs, so I mainly considered a blog to be a kind of web journal, sometimes personal, sometimes familial. So when I began my blog I felt constrained to write about deep thoughts, and books, boring daily dealings, all because I thought it needed to be a varied selection of snippets from my life.

I'll even admit that when I started this blog I enthusiastically thought to myself it could be my thoughts on amazing entertainment (i.e. books, music, video games, movies). But even that made me feel a bit constrained and often I wanted to write about some amazing album but I decided against it because I had way too many posts on music and not enough on movies. And so no one got anything. Lately, however, I've decided to simply write to my heart's content and completely ignore any sort of restrictions in terms of content. I'm throwing any resemblance of a framework out the window in favor of a more free-flowing, passionate blog. As has been the trend of late, I expect that most of my posts will be about music. Because honestly, there isn't really anything in this life I want to drone on about.

Take, for instance, the photo I added at the start of this post. Awesome photo, right? That's literally the only reason I added it. It's an amazing band that gots an amazing photo, and I wanted you to see it and read on, only to be disappointed upon realizing that the post has nothing to do with the picture. (Muahaha)

Thoughts: King of Limbs

While music enthusiasts the world over seem to believe firmly that some sort of stop on musical creativity is in international effect, depriving us of anything worth listening to, I think they aren't looking in the right places. Creativity and musical genius is rampant, but a lot of it doesn't fit neatly within the framework of what we're used to calling "good music." So it may come as a surprise, especially given my background of generally obsessing over every scrap of Radiohead music, that I don't find the King of Limbs to be a particularly breakthrough record, at least compared to previous Radiohead records.

I've listened to the King of Limbs a few dozen times now, and I can't help but compare my initial listening experience and my subsequent reaction to that of their previous album, In Rainbows. Yet so eager I was to capture that 2007 one-of-a-kind listening experience that I continued listening to the album over and over in order for "something" to click. That "something" that so often clicks with me once I realize I've discovered a truly remarkable album has yet to occur. I really really enjoy the King of Limbs, especially its sublime second half, but at the end of the day I'm still under the impression that I'm listening to a sort of half-baked project. Either a half-complete project or a project without the same depth as other Radiohead projects, I guess the difference is irrelevant. The songs fit neatly into Radiohead playlists and such, but taken as a whole it only has the completeness of a Thom Yorke side project. And any Radiohead fan knows that while Thom Yorke may be the creative center, Johnny and the rest of the crew comprise the heart and soul of the band.

This is a very listenable record that showcases some of the best production of any Radiohead album, but ultimately it will most likely go down in the band's history as one of their "worst." It's clearly made from the same genetic material as the other albums, yet still lacks the quality and substance of its brothers.

8/10

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact

Not sure what the band's name means, but it sounds awesome. And not only does the band name sound cool, but luckily the music follows suit as well. I haven't actually listened to Gang Gang Dance's previous work, but I've grown rather fond of the most recent album Eye Contact which doesn't even come out until next week but is being streamed for free here for who knows how long.

Creation

A few things have been on my mind recently that I'd like to share with the one, maybe two people who view this blog:

Is creativity a trait one is born with, or is a skill that has to be cultivated and worked at until perfection is achieved? Can everyone be creative in some way or another, and it just needs to be discovered under the right circumstances?

As long as I can remember I've possessed an obscene passion toward music. The passion sometimes bubbles up to the surface in the form of euphoric tears. Music somehow touches my soul, but not in some metaphoric way. I can literally feel a warmth burning somewhere in my chest that spreads throughout my entire body. It's crazy, and I'm pretty sure it isn't normal. The first love affair with a song I ever I had was when I was 3 years-old and the song was Neil Diamond's "Heading for the Future." It's kind of a lousy song, but I loved drumming to it in the back seat of my Mom's Hyundai so much that the memory of it has stubbornly refused to leave my mind. Then it seems the floodgates opened and I was falling in love with songs all around me. "Enjoy the Silence," "Even Flow," "The Audience is Listening," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Black Hole Sun," "Amish Paradise," "Closer," "Gemini Dream".... All before I was... 9 or so. The strongest memories I have of my childhood all involve music (and to a lesser extent, films and video games ha ha).

So in retrospect it seems I was destined for some sort of musical greatness. I had some singing talent, chops on the piano and I understood the theory well for my age. And yet nothing ever really happened. I sang in a choir, took piano lessons, the usual stuff that musically inclined children engage in, but nothing ever clicked like I wanted it to. After years and years of loving music to death, there was still an itch that I couldn't scratch-- the itch to create. Yet whenever I sat down on the piano to plunk out something unique and catchy, the only tune going through my mind were the ones I constantly listened to on my Walkman. And that is pretty much the rest of the story.

I stubbornly refuse to give up, going so far as to hoard as many musical instruments as possible in hopes that one of them will open up some magical conduit to my illusive creative center. It has yet to happen. And yet I soldier on, in the meantime obsessively scouring the web in search of better music, trying my best to keep the itch at bay.

I mean is there truly a more transcendent and pure form of art?! Even this guy, undeniably over-the-top as he is, creates something that finds a place in my soul and firmly roots itself there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IrWyZ0KZuk

Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place

The words in my mind are forming in staccato right now so this won't be written like a typical, flowy post. Ulrich Schnauss is an enigmatic German producer who only has a few albums to his name, but the ones he's created are sort of miraculous. His first, Far Away Trains Passing by is a highly repetitive, albeit beautiful, foray into transportative electro. It's a lovely album the first few times, but after that it becomes confined to that one itunes playlist you listen to when you want that sort of unobtrusive ambiance, like when you're studying or writing. However, I'm exceedingly grateful for his first album because if it weren't for that first creative step I would never have had the privilege of discovering, then subsequently devouring, A Strangely Isolated Place, one of my all-time favorites.

Lyric-free, it's an album that flawlessly taps into music's potential to transport your heart and soul to undiscovered territory. It does for laptop electronic music what Debussy's Clair de Lune did for piano solos. It reaches a new pinnacle of beauty for the genre and does so quite effortlessly. It's not an album for every mood, but when you're in just the right state of mind it becomes music at its most sensuous.

9/10

Since the album's release in 2005, Schnauss' career has been on the backburner, but if Pandora radio is any validation for a musician's staying power, just tune to radiohead, sigur ros, boards of canada, mogwai, or any number of electro-savvy bands and you're sure to cross paths with one of his songs.

Gut Reactions - King of Limbs

I find it amusing that so many prominent music journalists from prominent publications found the need to release a review of this album mere hours after it became available for download on the band's website. Like I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm not one to make a snap judgment on something as potentially earthshaking as a new Radiohead LP. Let's face it, Radiohead leaves a wake of epic everywhere they go, so if there's one album I want to spend a little extra time getting to know, it's this.

But what I hear in this album is a sound that is clearly different from previous LPs, yet unmistakably Radiohead. Overall it's a more percussive album than any of the others, many of the tracks sounding akin to "The Reckoner" from In Rainbows or"Backdrifts" from Hail to the Thief. It's also a little more solemn-sounding than In Rainbows, yet it still manages to maintain an optimistic sound even amidst its bleakest moments. Anyhow, I'll give a full review later, but for now you can give it a listen yourself here.