Phishanga said:

YES!!!

And I cannot f*cking see it in my country. BS.

it's a great track, freaked when I saw the title though!!!. Bodes well, more accessible etc.

Apparently, you can dl the album now, a day early. Leave it up to Radiohead to release an album with ZERO leaks before and then release it a day early.

CANNOT wait to get home from work.

Yeah, but where's the rawk?

OMG OMG OMG

just stepped out of bed and figured i'd go to the usual radiohead forums to see

what the thing in tokyo was about.

only to find out that all the rd forums have crashed due to too much trafic

then went to TKOL and the album's already there

downloading right now. jeez, i need to shut the windows, draw the curtains,

unplug the phone and the doorbell. lol.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghghghg

half through it now, so far it sounds like flying lotus vs kid a with a sprinkling of in rainbows.

probably closer to the eraser than it is to in rainbows.

very short album tho.

so perhaps they're going with their model of releasing ep's. which would mean there will be

another 'album' sooner this time. perhaps something like kid a/amnesiac.

although, strictly speaking this is not an ep. yet it's not a full on album either in a way.

but so far it sounds amazing. i know many people keep hoping for more guitars and such

but this is the kind of stuff i totally love. electro jazz.

now onto the second half of the album

I'm stoked!!!! Thanks for continuing to update us. I'll have to wait until this afternoon to download it.

The track listing for The King Of Limbs:

"Bloom"
"Morning Mr Magpie"
"Little By Little"
"Feral"
"Lotus Flower"
"Codex"
"Give Up The Ghost"
"Separator"

i can't believe what they've done with "lotusflower", it's so good.

clocks in at 5:00 and then you just go "NOOOO, it can't be over,

not yet".

the whole thing changes a bit in the second half, becoming a bit more 'regular'

instead of the flying lotus kind of sounding first half.

i'm impressed. not a single song i don't like. although i'm still not too big of a

fan of "give up the ghost".

can't help but feel there is more to follow in the last half of this year. but for

now, i'm stoked. gonna throw this sucker on repeat a few times.

i've created my own version with their other recent material. It fits perfectly stylistically, and just seems to work nicely. Makes a fuller, more complete album.

[img:$uid]http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o177/B_a_n_d_i_t/kingoflimbs.jpg[/img:$uid]

'Morning Mr. Magpie' is fucking great!

Ok, 'Little by Little' is NICE no more post til Ive made it through he album.

Lotusflow3r had the rawk.

Album is so so. Again it feels like they are on cruise control, putting out style over substance.

Not bad, just not great. Again.

Oh boy... that will take a few listens to really judge. DEFINITELY a lot of 'The Eraser' in there, some Kid A / Amnesiac, mostly very somber. Surely not for everyone. These heavy synth sounds over fast, syncopated beats sound very Thom Yorke to me. Almost feels like a solo album.

Soooo glad 'Give up the Ghost' is very close to the live version. Amazing. Lars, you're crazy.

Phishanga said:

Oh boy... that will take a few listens to really judge. DEFINITELY a lot of 'The Eraser' in there, some Kid A / Amnesiac, mostly very somber. Surely not for everyone. These heavy synth sounds over fast, syncopated beats sound very Thom Yorke to me. Almost feels like a solo album.

Soooo glad 'Give up the Ghost' is very close to the live version. Amazing. Lars, you're crazy.

crazy for radiohead

Codex and Give Up The Ghost are...'gorgeous'(c) TRON (the orger not the movie).

This is a nice set ..it seems like...the In Rainbows aftershow

Wow! This is a stellar CD for 2011!! It gonna be hard to top this one.

Yeah, that review above pretty much sums it up. A brilliant piece of music.

Mr. Nelson - please put this CD on repeat and get in the studio

oh and yes...it is way to short.

[Edited 2/18/11 14:35pm]

IstenSzek said:

this review on the guardian website comes closest to how i feel about the album myself, it's

a pity they didn't do a more extensive review yet because i agree with 95% of what is being

said here.

It is reliably unorthodox, a new sonic adventure for the restless Oxford quintet, but, despite

its boldness and weirdness, it is easy on the ear, with a mellifluous melodiousness and gentle

sonic palette that doesn’t demand huge leaps of faith. Percussive, groovy, spacious, ethereal

and melodic, this is late night Radiohead, a stoned, somnambulistic wander through the urban

wastelands shared by such post-Dubstep adventurers as Burial and James Blake.

Taking the tender intimacy of Radiohead classics like No Surprises and Fake Plastic Trees

and cross fertilising them with elements of world music, jazz and ambient, the result is

the kind of chill out music that keeps you awake. Highly strung and instinctively contrary,

but also deeply harmonically musical, Radiohead somehow finds a space between

the sinister and the beautiful, the tense and the meditative. They remain masters of musical

dichotomy.

As the title somehow suggests, The King of Limbs has a percussive undertow, constructed on

nervous, skittery rhythms that draw on North African and jazz sources, chopped and skewed

by computer-era cut and paste sensibilities. For all their movement and agitation, the rhythm

tracks are tip toe light, Phil Selway’s microbeats laterally tied to Colin Greenwood’s strolling,

silvery, spacious basslines, the bottom end vibrating with sub sonic shudders. On top, Thom

Yorke’s vocals float with sweet tunefulness.

He has always been a mumbler, preferring a kind of impressionistic suggestion of a lyric,

where key lines shift into focus then disappear, sucked back into the band’s abstractions.

This can be deliberately disconcerting, but there is something about his tender falsetto and

reassuring phrases (“I’ll set you free” “No one gets hurt”) that suggest succour rather than

dystopian paranoia.

Between voice and the rhythm track the space is sketchily filled with all manner of feather light,

shadowy sounds: fragmenting guitars, ghost choirs, woozy samples, electronic clicks and glitches.

It is almost impossible to think of these in terms of arrangements, they are too slippery and

liquid.

The album ends neither with a bang nor a whimper, rather it gently winds down over three tracks

of beautiful balladry, haunting love songs and lullabies for the damned. Once Radiohead sounded

like the last band standing after the apocalypse, but this has a lovely optimism about it.

The abiding impression is of a cigarette break in the eye of the hurricane, down time from a

disaster. If this is what the future sounds like, it is nothing to be afraid of.

That review is nearly as pretentious as the the music.

SquirrelMeat said:

IstenSzek said:

this review on the guardian website comes closest to how i feel about the album myself, it's

a pity they didn't do a more extensive review yet because i agree with 95% of what is being

said here.

It is reliably unorthodox, a new sonic adventure for the restless Oxford quintet, but, despite

its boldness and weirdness, it is easy on the ear, with a mellifluous melodiousness and gentle

sonic palette that doesn’t demand huge leaps of faith. Percussive, groovy, spacious, ethereal

and melodic, this is late night Radiohead, a stoned, somnambulistic wander through the urban

wastelands shared by such post-Dubstep adventurers as Burial and James Blake.

Taking the tender intimacy of Radiohead classics like No Surprises and Fake Plastic Trees

and cross fertilising them with elements of world music, jazz and ambient, the result is

the kind of chill out music that keeps you awake. Highly strung and instinctively contrary,

but also deeply harmonically musical, Radiohead somehow finds a space between

the sinister and the beautiful, the tense and the meditative. They remain masters of musical

dichotomy.

As the title somehow suggests, The King of Limbs has a percussive undertow, constructed on

nervous, skittery rhythms that draw on North African and jazz sources, chopped and skewed

by computer-era cut and paste sensibilities. For all their movement and agitation, the rhythm

tracks are tip toe light, Phil Selway’s microbeats laterally tied to Colin Greenwood’s strolling,

silvery, spacious basslines, the bottom end vibrating with sub sonic shudders. On top, Thom

Yorke’s vocals float with sweet tunefulness.

He has always been a mumbler, preferring a kind of impressionistic suggestion of a lyric,

where key lines shift into focus then disappear, sucked back into the band’s abstractions.

This can be deliberately disconcerting, but there is something about his tender falsetto and

reassuring phrases (“I’ll set you free” “No one gets hurt”) that suggest succour rather than

dystopian paranoia.

Between voice and the rhythm track the space is sketchily filled with all manner of feather light,

shadowy sounds: fragmenting guitars, ghost choirs, woozy samples, electronic clicks and glitches.

It is almost impossible to think of these in terms of arrangements, they are too slippery and

liquid.

The album ends neither with a bang nor a whimper, rather it gently winds down over three tracks

of beautiful balladry, haunting love songs and lullabies for the damned. Once Radiohead sounded

like the last band standing after the apocalypse, but this has a lovely optimism about it.

The abiding impression is of a cigarette break in the eye of the hurricane, down time from a

disaster. If this is what the future sounds like, it is nothing to be afraid of.

That review is nearly as pretentious as the the music.

Just curious, what makes music "pretentious"? Generally, I mean.

I am enjoying this. I think people had some really big expectations with this one.. I am more partial to this side of Radiohead.

And if I were a betting man, I'd say there is more music coming at some point down the road.

On the way out the door...

This album has FUCK. ALL. to do with dubstep and it annoys the shit out of me that lazy reviewers are using that comparison. Do a YouTube search for Burial or James Blake and post some songs that sound similar to these. (And its not just this review, its been mentioned in several that I've read and its FACTUALLY incorrect).

Also, the album ends with a song called Separator... get it?

Cerebus said:

On the way out the door...

This album has FUCK. ALL. to do with dubstep and it annoys the shit out of me that lazy reviewers are using that comparison. Do a YouTube search for Burial or James Blake and post some songs that sound similar to these. (And its not just this review, its been mentioned in several that I've read and its FACTUALLY incorrect).

Also, the album ends with a song called Separator... get it?

well i happen to be a fan of both burial and james blake and i can hear where the resemblance

comes in. i don't really get the dubstep thing either tho. the other elements in burials albums

and remixes, yes, but not the dubstep. as far as james blake goes, yeah, i guess, somewhat.

but i feel like they share an approach or an atmosphere more so than actual composition, if

that makes any sense at all.

[img:$uid]http://i56.tinypic.com/2a75rew.jpg[/img:$uid]

February 2011

Radiohead released its eighth album, The King of Limbs, as a digital download this morning, a day earlier than expected. With eight tracks spanning 37 minutes, The King of Limbs is surprisingly short – but it's also typically rich with electronic texture.

Here, Rolling Stone critic Will Hermes takes you inside the album, track by track.

"Bloom" - A garden of blossoming loops: a piano phrase, some sputtering electronic noise, a killer snare drum fillip. Then, a minute in, Thom Yorke comes in like a voice from the great beyond. “Open your mouths wiiiiiiiiiiide,” he sings, vowels stretching out like Slinkys.

A strange and handsome bit of string orchestration on the breakdown, like a chamber orchestra caught in a sandstorm.

"Morning Mr Magpie" – Clattering, hyperactive, pencil-neck funk with a spare guitar melody. "You stole it all/Give it back," Yorke intones slowly. What a groove: with or without electronic intermediaries, Phil Selway is one of rock’s great drummers.

"Little By Little" - A steady bass pulse and an Arabic-scented melody unspool over junkyard gamelan beats and backward loops. When Yorke coos “I’m such a tease, and you’re such a flirt,” it’s curiously lonely-sounding – like he’s singing into his iPhone with the camera app flipped to reverse.

"Feral" - Radiohead messing around with some ideas from the world of dubstep, the bass-mad, UK-bred dance subgenre. Abstract, loopy, throbbing.

"Lotus Flower" - A song Yorke played last year in a number of solo shows, with some haunting falsetto. It sounded great with just his hollow-body electric, and sounds equally great here, with Phil Selway’s head-snap beats, a curtain of synths, and some spacy vocal effects.

"Codex" – A somber, gorgeous piano ballad with muffled beats and some beautiful string arrangements performed by The London Telefilmonic Orchestra. “Jump off the end/into a clear lake/noone around,” Yorke croons. A song about washing yourself clean in a world of dirty water.

"Give Up The Ghost" - An acoustic guitar strums slowly alongside a loop of Yorke gently singing “don’t hurt me,” while he versifies stunningly over the top, vocals refracting through prisms of electronics. “I think I have had enough,” he declares at one point. Not us.

"Separator" – Closing out a brief record (37 minutes) that features some of Thom Yorke’s prettiest and most inventive singing, Yorke tells of a woman that “blows her cover” over Phil Selways funky drumbeats, while a chorus of ghostly Thoms babble incoherently in the right channel.

The guitar lines sound like ghosts too – maybe waiting to be reborn on the next Radiohead album?

On Lotus Flower, im hearing a resemblance to the work that Apparatjik is doing on there record "We Are Here"

I think it's hilarious they have a song called "Lotus Flower".

Identity said:

I view the "newspaper album" reference as a backhanded compliment on Prince's newspaper exclusive 20ten.

[Edited 2/18/11 18:46pm]

dalsh327 said:

I think it's hilarious they have a song called "Lotus Flower".

Identity said:

I view the "newspaper album" reference as a backhanded compliment on Prince's newspaper exclusive 20ten.

[Edited 2/18/11 18:46pm]

I thought LF was a jab at Prince for the Creep cover controversy.

This is a brilliant concept album about the arc of a relationship, from beginning to end.

Phishanga said:

SquirrelMeat said:

That review is nearly as pretentious as the the music.

Just curious, what makes music "pretentious"? Generally, I mean.

Attempting to reveal deep universal truths or resonate visceral emotions while composing and playing music that is shallow and uninvolving aka pop music aka 7 minute rock songs aka bands up to and including Radiohead.