Sad as it may be, the release of new Radiohead albums have had a Pearl Harbor-type effect on my life. I can remember where and when. On vacation with the family, I made my parents stop at every goddamn Wal-Mart in Alabama the day OK Computer came out. For Kid A, Chris, Mark, Jon Poulson and I joined the eager masses at the Dinkytown Cheapo, counting down the seconds until midnight and what seemed like a musical revolution. Insomniac was a gaggle of scraggly hair in Wildcat's Bonneville driving to Sioux Falls and coming back in an excited haze. I swear it was only seconds after its release that Kyle was serving up Hail To The Thief along with the dollar taps at Carey's. And while the nature of the In Rainbows release is less conducive to that first-time excitement, it remains, in my opinion, the crowning achievement in online selling. I'll never forget the elation that came along with naming my own price (I think I gave them 5 euro and ended up buying the CD later that winter).
So today's unveiling of The King Of Limbs has got me excited. I found out about the early release with one foot out the door on my way to class this morning, so I have had some time to reflect. I got to thinking about the Radiohead catalog and, with the possible exception of Pablo Honey, its aversion to aging. Over a decade after their releases, OK Computer and Kid A are every bit the trend setters they were at the time. And while they may have sent less shockwaves, Hail To The Thief and In Rainbows simply could not have been made by any other band. If anything, The Bends sounds like their most "modern" recording; the rest of it is still so far ahead of its time.
It's obvious why Radiohead has created such a resounding legacy: unique songwriting about extra-universal themes, an ability to make familiar sounds in ways no one has heard them before, and, maybe most importantly, their unfettering dedication to rhythm. And let's face it, their music is fucking huge.
With all this in mind, along with the smell of 60 degrees in the air, I drove to school wanting to hear one album and one album only. The Blue Trees by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.
How is it that something so small, delicate and ethereal could resonate so much louder in my psyche than any of those aforementioned Radiohead monoliths?
Released in February of 2001, The Blue Trees was the culmination of this Welsh proto-punk wonkfest of a band's gentle decline into maturity. Steeped in Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music and the gentle fogs of the Snowdonia, these eight tracks have managed to associate themselves with every coming spring and every imaginable opportunity.
After a briefly meditating title track, the cooperative finger picking and fiddle doodling of "This Summer's Been Good From The Start" gently release into the inevitable dissonance at the intersection of hopes and reality, all while simmering peacefully beneath the optimisticly sang "Where are we going/I don't know/How do we get there/So and so." It's a timeless ode to the optimism of every baseball season, every summer fling and every coming adventure. It used to make me want to build a raft from driftwood to sail from Vermillion to New Orleans. It makes it possible.
The unparalleled layering of "Lady Fair" and the mushroom masterpiece "Foot and Mouth '68" continue the languid drive into the breezy, three-part "Wrong Turnings." One can't help but ponder the range of emotions that poured out onto the pages and pages of letters from western expeditions or the awe inspired when taking a step from virgin timber onto the plains; the comradery fading from a smoldering campfire.
"Fresher Than The Sweetness In Water," a Honeybus cover, brings us back into modern day and reminds us of that girl we were thinking about at the beginning of the summer. Once the buoyant pop subsides, a heavy dose of sorrow accompanies the north wind as it makes its presence known in the achingly beautiful "Face Like Summer" before the album's lone Welsh number, "Sbia Ar y Seren," seemingly acknowledges its coming fate: fields and fields of naked corn stalks poking through the snow, like whiskers on the face of a ghost.
At a running time of less than 25 minutes, it's gone before you know it. C'est la vie.
I spend an inordinate amount of time scouring the web for lost folk masterpieces. As good as some of them have been, I can't say I've found anything much better than this. Unfortunately, I'm having a real bitch of a time finding any of the songs to post but, if you don't own the album, here's some links:
This Summer's Been Good From The Start
Face Like Summer
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