Thom Yorke---The Eraser Leaks!!1

[u2popmofo]

And I want U2 to start challenging themselves and their audience again also, but it's not going to happen.

 

[Bono's shades]

Uh, back to the Eraser...

I completely forgot this was coming out today. I just happened to be in Target to pick up a few things and I saw it. I bought it, but I didn't take off the plastic wrap until I checked out the 30 second song previews on iTunes because I was kind of afraid it might be unlistenable crap (I'm not a huge fan of Kid A or Amnesiac). It sounded promising so I went ahead and opened the CD package.

I'm listening to it for the second time now, but it's late and I'm way too tired to post anything coherent about it.

 

[joyfulgirl]

I'm loving it. I love the first third and last third but find the middle a bit weak though I don't dislike anything. Every song has something that pulls me in. This is exactly what I would expect a Thom Yorke record to be.

The Kid A was crap argument is so boring (and unbelievably wrong) that it's hardly even worth commenting on (though I just did ) and doesn't ruffle my feathers one little bit.

 

[xaviMF22]

I'm loving it. I love the first third and last third but find the middle a bit weak though I don't dislike anything. Every song has something that pulls me in. This is exactly what I would expect a Thom Yorke record to be.

The Kid A was crap argument is so boring (and unbelievably wrong) that it's hardly even worth commenting on (though I just did ) and doesn't ruffle my feathers one little bit.

glad you like it

 

[joyfulgirl]

glad you like it

I've had Atoms for Peace on repeat for weeks and now I have The Eraser and Analyze on repeat. I'm sure I'll make my way through the whole record like that.

Thom Yorke writes very melancholy songs that make me very happy. Go figure.

 

[xaviMF22]

did you isten to the link I posted to the live version of Cymbal Rush?.......

the song its a million times better live

 

[joyfulgirl]

did you isten to the link I posted to the live version of Cymbal Rush?.......

the song its a million times better live

I knew I forgot something. I'll do that after work.

 

[xaviMF22]

I knew I forgot something. I'll do that after work.

well here is a higher quality version than the one I posted earlier......enjoy

hxxp://www.ysi.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=049DE27747C3D7B7

 

[I'm Ready]

Brau, the question is why do keep spamming radiohead threads when you clearly don't like them?

I happen to enjoy the new songs + the eraser, and you saying that it sucks won't stop it

I haven't been interested in U2 for almost a year now so I stay clear of EYKIW, why can't you just leave these threads?

I'm not trying to put you down or anything, but I just don't see the point in it since we all know you dislike post ok computer era of radiohead, so stop letting us know

 

[joyfulgirl]

well here is a higher quality version than the one I posted earlier......enjoy

hxxp://www.ysi.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=049DE27747C3D7B7

Was just able to listen to this

What's this from?

 

[U2Man]

That's true joyfulgirl. The first part and the last part of the album, track 1,2,3 and 7,8,9 are brilliant. 4,5 are a bit boring.

 

[xaviMF22]

Was just able to listen to this

What's this from?

a radio show thom did when they were in L.A


I'm telling you this version should have been on the record

 

[joyfulgirl]

That's true joyfulgirl. The first part and the last part of the album, track 1,2,3 and 7,8,9 are brilliant. 4,5 are a bit boring.

6 is also brilliant

 

[joyfulgirl]

a radio show thom did when they were in L.A


I'm telling you this version should have been on the record

Was it on Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW? I check their site regularly and haven't seen him on the schedule.

It's interesting how so many of Radiohead's Kid A/Amnesiac era stuff sounds better live to me (and I love both records). I was knocked out by Morning Bell at the show a couple of weeks ago, for example. You'd think it would be more difficult to capture this kind of techno-y stuff live but in fact it can work the other way, just stripping it back down to the basics live. I dunno.

 

[xaviMF22]

Was it on Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW? I check their site regularly and haven't seen him on the schedule.

It's interesting how so many of Radiohead's Kid A/Amnesiac era stuff sounds better live to me (and I love both records). I was knocked out by Morning Bell at the show a couple of weeks ago, for example. You'd think it would be more difficult to capture this kind of techno-y stuff live but in fact it can work the other way, just stripping it back down to the basics live. I dunno.

yes I think it was on that show, but was recorded a while ago

 

[xaviMF22]

Harrodown hill is a great track...do you guys know what it is about?


Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke's 2006 album The Eraser includes the track Harrowdown Hill, named after the place where Kelly's body was found. Lyrics include "Don't ask me, ask the ministry" and "Did I fall or was I pushed? And where's the blood?", among others, clearly referencing the incident. Yorke has been quoted as saying it is the angriest song he has ever written


if anyone is interested you can read up about it here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

 

[roy]

I posted my opinion on the new Radiohead record.

You hate everything relating to post 1999 U2. Doesn't stop you from posting in those U2 threads.

That's is so true Some people want it all their own way.

 

[I'm Ready]

Harrodown hill is a great track...do you guys know what it is about?


Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke's 2006 album The Eraser includes the track Harrowdown Hill, named after the place where Kelly's body was found. Lyrics include "Don't ask me, ask the ministry" and "Did I fall or was I pushed? And where's the blood?", among others, clearly referencing the incident. Yorke has been quoted as saying it is the angriest song he has ever written


if anyone is interested you can read up about it here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

it doesn't sound that angry on record though

my favorites from the album are The Eraser, Black Swan and Cymbal Rush

 

[u2popmofo]

Some people want it all their own way.

Some people just want others who have nothing but negativity to share to keep it to themselves. I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally don't see the need to constantly rain on other peoples' parades the second they mention a group/album/song I don't like. I let those people enjoy what they want to enjoy, as everyone on earth has different tastes. From how I understand the definition of the word, constantly entering threads for no reason other than to be negative and cause problems is called "trolling" and supposedly is not allowed on this forum. I understand that there is a thin line between what is or is not trolling, but I feel like I see cases of this from time to time. Not to mention huge inappropriate generalizations about entire groups of people who are fans of certain artists and bands, which is just plain unfair and biggoted in my opinion.

As I've stated, these feelings are nothing other than my opinion. I personally don't feel it fair to shout out my opinion like it must be true or better than anyone elses, so I apologize if I have spoken for anyone else here.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Some people just want others who have nothing but negativity to share to keep it to themselves. I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally don't see the need to constantly rain on other peoples' parades the second they mention a group/album/song I don't like. I let those people enjoy what they want to enjoy, as everyone on earth has different tastes. From how I understand the definition of the word, constantly entering threads for no reason other than to be negative and cause problems is called "trolling" and supposedly is not allowed on this forum. I understand that there is a thin line between what is or is not trolling, but I feel like I see cases of this from time to time. Not to mention huge inappropriate generalizations about entire groups of people who are fans of certain artists and bands, which is just plain unfair and biggoted in my opinion.

As I've stated, these feelings are nothing other than my opinion. I personally don't feel it fair to shout out my opinion like it must be true or better than anyone elses, so I apologize if I have spoken for anyone else here.

 

[xaviMF22]

it doesn't sound that angry on record though

my favorites from the album are The Eraser, Black Swan and Cymbal Rush

actually I think it does..especially when he says "well I'm coming home"

as of now I rate the songs this way

1)atoms for peace
the eraser
skip divided thom's humming
harrowdown hill
analyze
cymbal rush
and it rained all night
the clock
9)black swan


Here is an excellent review...I highly recommend it

Thom Yorke
The Eraser
XL, 2006

In the end, it all comes down to the voice. Forget the snapping trickery of electronica, the processed guitars, those shimmering curtains of sound, the music-box laptop aesthetic: The Eraser is the sound of Thom Yorke's voice at its most intimate, its most tender, and simply put, its most beautiful.

Written by Yorke and recorded in collaboration with Radiohead’s long time producer Nigel Godrich during a hiatus in Radiohead’s recording schedule in 2005 (their seventh album is expected next year,) the announcement of The Eraser’s release, a few days into the band’s recent European/UK tour, came as a surprise toboth fans and music industry alike. The reasons for initially keeping the project under wraps, however, are easy to understand. Yorke must now, in 2006, necessarily struggle against the weight of Radiohead’s double baggage: the expectations of those who want Radiohead to maintain some kind of infinite artistic escape velocity, and their own brilliant back catalogue. Judging The Eraser apart from Radiohead’s work, particularly after Yorke himself has refused to call it a solo album, is a bit of a hair-splitting exercise. Additionally, discerning Radiohead’s fingerprints on The Eraser’s nine tracks is inevitable; it’s easy to find the dirge-like keyboard bass of "Myxomatosis" reworked in "Skip Divided", for example, and the guitar coda of "Harrowdown Hill" — which enters like an angry, strangulated cry and just as quickly bangs to a halt — echoes the equally dramatic guitar break from "Morning Bell", particularly in its live incarnation.

But this album is clearly Yorke’s, and not Radiohead’s. With Godrich, Yorke sidesteps the symphonic density of Radiohead’s best work by building shimmering washes of electronic sound and texture: angular, flickering static and punctuation created by whirring percussive effects are interwoven with filigrees of guitar, and glittering piano lines are contrasted with deceptively simple chordal structures. The matrix of beats and bubbling loops share more points of reference with the rhythmic constructions of hip hop, or the airy spaces of dub, than with rock; and Yorke’s debt to Warp records, et al, is made explicit with "Cymbal Rush's" titular nod to Aphex Twin. (One other obvious point of reference, which has been explicitly name checked by Yorke, is Bjork’s Homogenic, though Vespertine, with its delicacy and quietude must surely be another; and the emphasis on the voice further suggests a debt to her recent vocals-only album Medulla.)

This all sounds distancing, even alienating, in effect, but it is not. Like the wintry landscapes of Radiohead’s landmark 2000 album Kid A, which on listening reveal their inward fire, there is feeling, even passion here, and it is found within vocals recorded with unprecedented — for Radiohead — clarity, shorn of reverb and close to the listener as a whisper in the ear. In the background, the webs of electronic sound support but never distract from the vocal lines (the one exception is the album closer "Cymbal Rush," where a five note old-style synth figure repeats throughout the song; but when the piano and vocal come to their wordless, ravishingly gorgeous climax, it’s as if the sun has come out from behind clouds). This foregrounding of Yorke’s voice is particularly striking in view of the purposely occluded vocals of Kid A, and, to a lesser extent, its follow-up, Amnesiac. In this sense, The Eraser stands not just as the recovery of Yorke’s voice, as in 2003’s Hail to the Thief, but an assertion of it as his principle instrument;both the color and warmth of this album are found within its fluid changes in register and timbre.

Thematically, The Eraser is the portrait in sound of a world fragmenting in front of Yorke’s eyes. City streets flood under apocalyptic waves, clocks unwind and time runs out, candles flicker in a city blackout, water moves up hillsides while blood flows down, the moon falls from the sky. The poisonous folly of Iraq, as well as looming environmental crisis (Yorke is a spokesperson for Britain’s Friends of the Earth), hang heavily over this record, and the metaphors of catastrophic flood and willed amnesia in the face of overwhelming fear — erasure asboth escape and threat — are implicit in every track (and are further articulated through the excellent cover art by Radiohead artist in residence Stanley Donwood). For Yorke, it is beauty which is the saving grace of this distressed and drowning world, and which represents a possibility for hope amidst earthly chaos. The lines try to save your house, try to sing your songs, try to run but it follows you up the hill from "Cymbal Rush" are delivered with a melody of such delicacy that what might seem on its face to be hopelessness resolves to a serene tendresse. In "And It Rained All Night" the deluge is described as relentless, invisible, indefatigable, indisputable, undeniable before Yorke adds the kicker: so how come it looks so beautiful? The Eraserboth asks and answers this question: this beauty is valuable and life affirming in and of itself, even if what it represents might be terrifying.

In form, the songs are full of finesse and sophistication: the graceful lope of "Black Swan," the off-centre pulse of guitars which drive "The Clock" like an engine running hard below decks, the tripping electronic lattice in "Atoms for Peace" which rises like a handful of balloons sent aloft. "Atoms for Peace" is straightforward and tender, with Yorke’s voice floating weightlessly, and includes the most disarmingly erotic line that he has ever written, invoking a lover’s labial petals: Peel all your layers off/I want to eat your artichoke heart. He continues: So many allies, so many allies/So feel the love come off of them, and take me in your arms, conjuring a circle of support that is the exact antithesis of the lonely watcher of "And It Rained All Night", a song I find myself warming to less, with its nursery rhyme evocations of rained out urban machinery. But The Eraser's varied emotional palette is seen here at its most dramatic, and when the music, mimicking the sound of a train at night, stutters to a halt and Yorke sings with heartbroken yearning I can see you, but I can never reach you, the effect is powerfully moving, nearly cathartic. "Black Swan" moves at a perfect languid speed, like a hand trailing through water, while a distant guitar plays a riff which, if higher in the mix, would have made the song more rock, but less remarkable. This is fucked up, croons Yorke, sounding for all the world as if he is singing a lullaby to a restless child. "Analyse" has an elegant sway and a mournful, but oddly uplifting melody, and lyrics which hint at hope amidst the darkness. But the real set piece of this record, and the song which feels the most completely realized, is "Harrowdown Hill," perhaps because it is grounded in specific event (the suicide under highly questionable circumstances of British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly). Singing as Kelly’s ghost, Yorke warns Don’t walk the plank like I did/you will be dispensed with… Did I fall or was I pushed? Don’t ask me, ask the ministry. It’s dark, angry, and barbed, an indictmentboth of Blair’s government and the faceless powers which crush individual lives, and is likely the most overtly political piece Yorke has yet recorded.

Despite the reach of its subject matter, The Eraser is intimate, restrained, and, odd as it might sound, even domestic, clear evidence of the work of one person in a room. This impression has been encouraged by Yorke himself, who has said that the album is meant to be listened to “in an isolated space—on headphones, or stuck in traffic,” and its spatial limits, its constraint, are audible. In a current musical climate of excess,both for good (Sufjan Stevens with his sprawling Illinois, Dan Bejar’s riot of invention on Destroyer’s Rubies) and ill (the comic-book parodies of gangster rap), The Eraser’s jewel-like focus seems almost anomalous. But take The Eraser on its own terms, and you will find that there is a human heart powerfully beating at the centre of this spare, lovely album. Allow yourself to enter into this world, and you will not soon forget it.


Juliet O'Keefe
July 12, 2006

 

[I'm Ready]

good review xavi

wow our ranking of album songs is really different, mine are:

1. The Eraser
2. Cymbal Rush
3. Black Swan
4. Harrowdown Hill
5. Atoms for Peace
6. Analyse
7. And it Rained all Night
8. The Clock
9. Skip Divided

 

[roy]

Some people just want others who have nothing but negativity to share to keep it to themselves.

I just find it a bit rich that certain individuals are asking members to stop posting negative comments when these same individuals are doing the exact same thing on other forums.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Here is an excellent review...I highly recommend it


and Yorke’s debt to Warp records, et al, is made explicit with "Cymbal Rush's" titular nod to Aphex Twin. (One other obvious point of reference, which has been explicitly name checked by Yorke, is Bjork’s Homogenic...)

Nice review.

I thought of Homogenic the minute I heard the opening notes of Cymbal Rush.

 

[u2popmofo]

I just find it a bit rich that certain individuals are asking members to stop posting negative comments when these same individuals are doing the exact same thing on other forums.

As I said, I can only speak for myself.



Anyways, to The Eraser. I truely think 'And It Rained All Night' is my favorite song (which I see was ranked near the bottom of both I'mReady and Xavi's lists).

Black Swan and Harrowdown Hill are two other favs, though I truely like them all.

 

[GibsonGirl]

I wish this album would hurry up and get here. Damn you, Amazon. These reviews have me salivating.

 

[roy]

As I said, I can only speak for myself.



Anyways, to The Eraser. I truely think 'And It Rained All Night' is my favorite song (which I see was ranked near the bottom of both I'mReady and Xavi's lists).

Black Swan and Harrowdown Hill are two other favs, though I truely like them all.

I've only heard Cymbal Rush & Harrowdown Hill. To be honest I've been disappointed in both, good but not great by any means IMO.

 

[impy13]

My new issue of Spin with Thommy on the cover just arrived in the mail.

 

[xaviMF22]

here is a video of Thom and Jonny performing "Cymbal Rush"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUFyJW6gSiM

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

thanks for the link xavi!