Robert Iddiols - Swimmer

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Oh, Lars...

"Cannes provides artists with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression", however, "we profoundly regret that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable".

The Yard anyone?

Radiohead Week - 17

Uh-oh, I seriously want this lot, although I think the price tag may push me out somewhat. It's listed at the Radiohead Discography as the 64th rarest item, out of almost 900. If only...

PS. - That copy of the Airbag EP I told you about, well it was in mint/sealed condition. Back o' the net!

Radiohead Week - 16

The mystery of further material deepens. Theorists, computer nerds, conspirators, and speculators are united in their effort to uncover the truth about additional songs that may form extra branches to The King Of Limbs.

Three things strike me. First, one can almost take it for granted that there is more material lying in wait; all previous Radiohead albums have been garnished with a decent batch of B-sides (not including Kid A, although Amnesiac followed soon after). Most recently, In Rainbows came with the bonus disc of 8 tracks; Amnesiac’s B-Sides form their own mini-album of greatness; OK Computer was followed by the Airbag: How’s My Driving EP that held 7 little gems; and the list goes on.

Second, the band have been extremely quiet since the release last week. In fact, they’ve been deathly silent. There’s been no media uprising of the usual sort in which one finds the papers drenched with interviews, and television and radio shows announcing bookings. This has never happened before. Of course, they could all be sitting at home, reclining by the fire with a cup of tea and their doting wives to keep them company, luxuriating in the knowledge that they’re the best band in the world, and generally letting the viral tornado build and build. This, however, doesn’t strike me as feasible – they were quick to quash rumors about a potential forthcoming EP, supposedly entitled "Wall Of Ice", in 2009 with the release of These Are My Twisted Words.

Third, even by the standards of the Radiohead fan-base, virile, active, and obsessive as it is, the tornado of speculation is turning into a veritable hurricane. If this silence continues any longer someone’s going to have to call George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Never before have the online message boards received quite so much attention, and the fans aren’t there to argue the qualities of the album; they want more. Even the skeptics concede, if the storm has already hit these heights, there may just be something to this.

If you’re a spectator to all this, check in with this blog: The King Of Limbs Part 2, where all the evidence is nicely laid out in plain English. This fellow, “APORIA”, on the AtEase boards seems very interesting indeed, and well-read too. Octavia Paz and Ovid make up his reading list. He also quotes a line of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake about the inability of language to accurately reflect the whole of reality. Could it be a member of the band? Colin? Similarly, the fact that the album artwork seems to be encoded with birdsong is quite incredible, made more so by the fact that it sounds like “Sing A Song Of Sixpence” when played backwards. Personally, I’m not sure about this last one, but would Radiohead go to these lengths to bring a revolution to the revolution? You damn right they would.

Radiohead Week - 15

“The last taboo in stand-up”, noted Stewart Lee at the conclusion of his routine last year, “is a man trying to do something sincerely and well”. A joke is always funnier when it brings with it an air of truth. In the case of Thom Yorke’s video for Lotus Flower, which I had already palmed aside as a masterpiece that required no further attention, Lee’s quaint remark encapsulates the way in which Radiohead hereby transcend the boundary between music and art.

Lotus Flower has become a viral sensation; garnering over 5 million hits, no less, over the course of six says, which is truly remarkable. That number, one considers, cannot simply come about through bespectacled Radiohead fans sitting awake in their bedroom hitting refresh every five minutes, which implies that outsiders, real people are actually watching it too. Imagine that! Perhaps the best way to gauge a Radiohead album is to assess the way it’s received by newcomers, virgins, the blessed, those who know-not-what-they-miss. Indeed, a good chum of mine, Luke sparked a conversation with me yesterday, unprompted, about the merits of Lotus Flower. “I like it”, he said, “and I don’t know why”. Ah, if ever there were a convert waiting to feel the limb of kings reach out and touch him, it’s here.

There’s been a flurry of online discussion about the video. Some have declared they don’t “get” it, as though there is anything to get. Similarly, the predictable array of unanswerable questions have all been asked; is it some sort of social commentary, a satire of the music industry or of pop culture, a parody of Beyonce’s Single Ladies? (There's even a convincing spoof interview with the "choreographer" on YouTube that analyses (or not) the dance moves.) Is it just a joke? Was it carefully and deliberately constructed, a marketing technique with a view to becoming a viral hit, evidenced perhaps by the dubbed mock-up videos and imitation videos? My answer to all if this is No. It’s a man, on a stage, attempting to do something sincerely and well.

Radiohead Week - 14

What follows is the rather bold opening gambit from AtEase boarder "iluvanal":

With Radiohead's 8th studio album, The King of Limbs, they've done it again. Created yet another album about anal sex.

The evidence, one has to admit, is almost comprehensive, and beautifully laid out by "iluvanal". Examples of musical and lyrical analysis include this interpretation of Lotus Flower:

"I would shape myself into your pocket (pocket = vag) // Invisible/Do what you want." - Here is Ed, defending himself from a selfish woman's desires for the inferior form of intercourse.

I've been a user on AtEase for over five years, and I have never read anything so hilarious on main. Go here.

Radiohead Week - 13

If you're planning on buying the download, may I recommend that you shell out for the high quality .wav version. You will feel better about yourself, and there are some moments of volume shift that would get lost among the .mp3 compression proceess, particularly on Feral, which is fast becoming my favorite Radiohead punctuation track since Hunting Bears, and it may be even better.

Radiohead Week - 12

Speculation about imminent material is rife, and I happen to think it's far from unfounded. Inevitably, however, there are some rather wayward hypotheses floating around; one boarder suggested that the vinyl may be writable and degradably impressed by a chemical agent in the artwork. Okay. Someone even posted to this page on Google Books about the "Separator Tree Algorithm". "Separator" is the last track on the [album], and The King of Limbs is a reference to a tree in Wiltshire. Sound stupid? Well, maybe, until you note that the book was published in Tokyo, Japan, the location for the botched promo on Friday night, and the home of Hachinko the dog, who also seems inextricably linked in some way to The King of Limbs. I still think that the evidence I posted below is significant, alongside some twitter posts from Chieftan Mews, who appears to be legit. All of this gives me a raging Radiohead rager. If you're not on board with all this, it's the kind of thing for which Radiohead fans were made.

Radiohead Week - 11

Holly just said: "I've spent the whole week listening to you talk about it, so why would I want to read about it too?". Ahh.

Radiohead Week - 10

Also, lest we forget this. For those of you who don't know, it was recorded illicitly by a Radiohead taper, "hoserama", during a souncheck in 2008 somehwere in the US (if I remember rightly). He then decided not to release the song for the enjoyment of fans, but rather insist that he would only trade it for a bootleg recording of equivalent value in terms of rarity and quality. But, of course, there is nothing of equivalent value, so all we are left with are these 75 seconds, which he circulated to qualify his veritability. Some fans booed and hissed his selfishness, others praised his resourcefulness and generosity (not without, in my opinion, a conscious desire to entice some more out of him). I fell into the former group. Wanker.