Friday 7 December 2007

In Rainbows? In Clover!

When was the last time you bought a record on vinyl? I'm assuming you're not a hard-core turntableist or something!

Radiohead's In Rainbows box set arrived at my office today. 12 inches of musical goodness. The already mega-downloaded original album on both CD and two 45rpm heavywewight vinyl records, plus a lyrics booklet (so that's what Thom's singing about!) and big book of artwork.

The whole package is very well put together and, I'm guessing, will become very collectible, as the In Rainbows store shuts its online doors on Monday 10th December.

But the big bonus is the CD of extra tracks. I've only had time to have a cursory listen, while pretending to be working, but the bonus music fits in well with the main album. In fact, it's more stripped back and back-to-basics than the previously-released work, giving it an immediacy that the rest of In Rainbows lacked.

[Don't get me wrong, I think that it's fantastic, but it took 2 or 3 listens to really start appreciating.]

Go Slowly is track 3, but it's the first real standout. Up On The Ladder is the first of two guitar-led tracks, but the 2nd, Bangers And Mash, is a frantic, frenetic, riff-based number that probably comes as close to 'funky' as Radiohead will ever get! There's a real taste of the bands early Talking Heads influence in this track. I'm guessing this will be a favourite at next year's gigs.

Top music from the Oxford boys. Keep it up lads!

2 comments:

D said...

Last week The Twang's Limited Edition Picture Disk - Surely I'm not really a teenager of the 80's !

petercmoore said...

Blimey - I've never heard of 'em!