How the mighty have fallen...
― afriendlypioneer, Friday, 11 January 2013 20:47 (eleven years ago) link
not cool to talk about thom dorke anymore because he kind of seems like a total asshole these days, but his remix of "give up the ghost" that's on the new "Dazed Digital" mix would have been by far the most foward thinking song on The King of Limbs
― Z S, Saturday, 19 January 2013 01:29 (eleven years ago) link
Wait, why does he seem like a total asshole these days?
― Walter Galt, Saturday, 19 January 2013 11:39 (eleven years ago) link
the first track involving in Yorke in years that I can listen to
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 19 January 2013 13:12 (eleven years ago) link
in
Interesting, Joey Waronker is one of the top five best drummers I've ever personally witnessed live, yet it sounds like programmed beats. Listening closely, I think maybe I can hear his playing mixed with the electronic stuff.
The artwork on the bottom of the web page is oddly Chicago themed, with the Marina City towers (famously shot on Wilco's Yankee Hotel cover) and the new-ish Trump Tower and other landmarks being flooded by a torrential Chicago river.
― Fastnbulbous, Saturday, 19 January 2013 17:32 (eleven years ago) link
So finally I can tell you the Atoms for Peace record is coming out on the 25th February, it’s called Amok. We put something new on the website for you to stare at etc for a while here..
Yea, cause I'm going to be staring at your webpage for a month waiting for your dull record to come out.
― MaresNest, Saturday, 19 January 2013 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
i mean if anyone's fans would it's thom yorke's tbf
― the legend of bigger yansh (some dude), Saturday, 19 January 2013 22:05 (eleven years ago) link
As i stated above, the new 'thing' on their website is a non-album track that you can download for free.
― Moka, Sunday, 20 January 2013 01:45 (eleven years ago) link
What free song? I can't stand "clever" unnavigable websites.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Sunday, 20 January 2013 02:34 (eleven years ago) link
not to put too fine a point on it, but arent you deliberately selectively quoting that line from the website to make him look like a dick, when the next one says that it's a long time to wait and more stuff will happen?
have heard the album, and its very strong in my opinion - the rhythm section's absolutely on fire, melodies are a lot more memorable than anything Radiohead have done for a long time. the single choice is mystifying - its definitely one of the more forgettable and weaker tracks. of course, you know what you're getting by now - if you arent a fan of yorkean vocals/layering/harmonising, the whole record's going to be a difficult listen, he definitely doesn't shy away from them on this.
― matt h, Sunday, 20 January 2013 15:32 (eleven years ago) link
Yea, you are totally right, that is petulant. I guess I feel rather underwhelmed and disappointed by Yorke's solo career so-far, I wish he would sing less tracks in his head voice too, or even sing a little less and be more adventurous.
Has anybody read Simon Reynold's review in Wire? He renders it as sounding neither here nor there.
― MaresNest, Sunday, 20 January 2013 18:21 (eleven years ago) link
Well, if it was said the album sounds neither here nor there, then Thom achieved his intent. He already said they wanted to blend the styles and leave people wondering what were real instruments and what were electronic sounds.
― Lex73, Monday, 21 January 2013 12:24 (eleven years ago) link
Dazed Digital mix best thing he's been involved with since in rainbows imo
― Z S, Thursday, 24 January 2013 01:42 (eleven years ago) link
GOOD TO SEE THOM TYPES IN ALL CAPS LIKE EVERYONE'S GRANDFATHER
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 February 2013 20:05 (eleven years ago) link
listening to this now...LOL@ how fuckin dull it is.
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 11 February 2013 15:06 (eleven years ago) link
Qualify / quantify dull.
― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 11 February 2013 15:51 (eleven years ago) link
I'm not into Radiohead at all so maybe it's clouded my judgement, but all I'm hearing throughout the record is vaguely 'atmospheric' synth washes, niggly blass bleeps, dull 'ethereal' vocals drifting in and out of the mix. Kind of record where a highlight is the inclusion of a Balaeric guitar lick that wouldn't really stand out on a shit-tonne of beardy disco stuff. basically sounds like stoner lullabies for dudes sat on their lappys at 3am.
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 11 February 2013 15:54 (eleven years ago) link
I'm so annoyed by the spam email he sent out and the involvement of flea that I'm disinclined to listen to this.
― Ulna (Nicole), Monday, 11 February 2013 15:55 (eleven years ago) link
I can't trust the musical taste of someone who calls a layered powerful beauty like Before Your Very Eyes and the amazing Reverse Running "dull". It is a headphones album, yeah, for dudes who like to "listen" to music. It is a Thom Yorke album, can't believe anyone is waiting for guitar solos or heavy drums. The siren vocals are a given as well, so, like it or move on.
― Lex73, Monday, 11 February 2013 16:14 (eleven years ago) link
I'd be curious to see if it picks up on some of the sounds used in his recent Dazed mixtape. still listening to that pretty frequently, it's great.
― Z S, Monday, 11 February 2013 16:16 (eleven years ago) link
"for dudes who like to "listen" to music" = eternal fucking lol
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 11 February 2013 16:25 (eleven years ago) link
'Head music for people who like head music' might be a better translation, but yeah. That sounds quite interesting to me.
― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 11 February 2013 16:30 (eleven years ago) link
"eternal fucking lol" -- whatever.
― Lex73, Monday, 11 February 2013 18:49 (eleven years ago) link
Sounds like another serving of some half-baked Thom Yorke table scraps for "dudes who like to 'convince' themselves Thom Yorke has anything left to say."
― afriendlypioneer, Monday, 11 February 2013 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
There was no spam email sent out, whoever received an email was signed up to the mailing list. Maybe don't sign up for a Radiohead mailing list if you don't want literally one email like every three years. Or maybe don't "forget" that you have signed up for an email list just so you can complain about the audacity of actually receiving a relevant email about an album announcement from something you signed up for.
― Melissa W, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 06:19 (eleven years ago) link
damn tom york's fans are defensive
― On Being Blue (Da Ba Dee): A Philosophical Inquiry (wins), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 17:13 (eleven years ago) link
I was going to ask if she wrote the E-mail.
― afriendlypioneer, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 17:16 (eleven years ago) link
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, February 11, 2013 4:25 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
OTM. I mean, what else do people do with music? Shag it?
― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
I like to "listen" to music iykwim
― On Being Blue (Da Ba Dee): A Philosophical Inquiry (wins), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 17:33 (eleven years ago) link
don't think my magazine are running the piece so i'll post it here if anyone wants to read my defense of my claim that it's a boring album
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, go on.
― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
Was hoping for The Bends + slap bass. Bitterly disappointed.
― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
kind of a rushed piece, was asked to write at short notice with a very tight turnaround, so it's not the best thing I've written this year...
Atoms for PeaceAMOK
Supergroups are a baffling thing. Despite the continual low-level disappointment they invariably offer the listener, we still go in with high hopes, demanding time after time that the combined forces of artists who’ve previously provided us with pleasure would coalesce into something more than the sum of their parts, something that melds individual excellence with group efficiency. That this rarely happens hasn’t seemed to deter us. As such, we delve into an album like AMOK – the first full-length product of Thom Yorke’s semi-supergroup with Nigel Godrich, Flea from RHCP, Beck’s drummer Joey Waronker and Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco – with a sense of excited trepidation, an excited anxiety. What the group have delivered is, sadly, somehow worse than a bad record. They’ve given us something that barely seems to exist, something that drifts inoffensively and ineffectually. Something that’s, well, a little boring. AMOK’s a record imbued with the feeling of sketchiness about it. Opening track ‘Before Your Very Eyes’ sets the precedent for the variations on a theme to come – that theme being essentially a rebooted version of Yorke’s The Eraser, all intricate percussion, both live and digital, flittering over and under Flea’s Remain In Light-reminiscent clusters of bass, synth washes riding above and below Yorke’s keening voice, chirruping whirrs writing themselves around distant piano strokes.
Admittedly it sounds wonderful, throbbing and woozy in some places, taut and honed in others, those synths mingling well with Yorke’s shimmering falsetto, but the songs themselves lack something. The listener’s left grasping onto fragments, onto things that wouldn’t normally get the ears pricked – the laconic Balaeric licks on ‘Stuck Together Pieces’ that’d be lost in the mire of countless beardy-disco 12”s, the super-skittery insectoid percussion of ‘Default’ would have been at home on a tonne of early-00s Mille Plateaux clicks'n'cuts compilations, the title track covers it’s vocals with the kind of dub-drenched, rain-soaked chemtrails that Burial’s used consistently. Perhaps admonishing a record for doing what it sets out to do – Treat it as a mood piece, something that’s meant to sound akin to the dulled narcotic fug of the 3am stoner and it ‘works’ a little better better – with the minimum of fuss and flashness potentially says more about the listener than it does the album, but a sense of disappointment lingers over AMOK. Very little really happens. It just sits there, strangely muted, strangely inert.
11/20
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
AMOK
vs
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SGjOCexTsi0/TUjOebGgvGI/AAAAAAAAAFw/YDX0va1DRZc/s1600/amok.jpg
― keef qua keef (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:21 (eleven years ago) link
I guess the notion of Atoms for Peace as a supergroup never occurred to me. It's a side project with a well-defined aesthetic. A long-playing mood piece is exactly what I'd expect.
― inste grammophon (rogermexico.), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:33 (eleven years ago) link
See, that sounds brilliant to me, Dwight.
― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:55 (eleven years ago) link
I listen to a ton of music that sounds like it barely existsCan't imagine tom Yorke's whinnying not buzz killing such a vibe
― brimstead, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 20:55 (eleven years ago) link
Opening track ‘Before Your Very Eyes’ sets the precedent for the variations on a theme to come – that theme being essentially a rebooted version of Yorke’s The Eraser, all intricate percussion, both live and digital, flittering over and under Flea’s Remain In Light-reminiscent clusters of bass, synth washes riding above and below Yorke’s keening voice, chirruping whirrs writing themselves around distant piano strokes.Admittedly it sounds wonderful, throbbing and woozy in some places, taut and honed in others, those synths mingling well with Yorke’s shimmering falsetto,
Admittedly it sounds wonderful, throbbing and woozy in some places, taut and honed in others, those synths mingling well with Yorke’s shimmering falsetto,
sold! seriously! i mean, i was going to check it out anyway but that sounds fantastic
― Z S, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 21:02 (eleven years ago) link
― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Monday, February 11, 2013 10:30 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol
― 'glown' with the king (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 21:33 (eleven years ago) link
Can't wait for their 9 remix EP's.
― billstevejim, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 22:52 (eleven years ago) link
I am glad I've turned people onto it. I don't think I was in a great mood when I played it etc.
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Thursday, 14 February 2013 00:15 (eleven years ago) link
s reynolds review in wire, otm
― Crackle Box, Thursday, 14 February 2013 15:52 (eleven years ago) link
what'd he say?
― Z S, Thursday, 14 February 2013 16:10 (eleven years ago) link
this whole thing (7/8 time sig, drum/bass/guitar sounds) reminds me of '80 Sting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o8EIenuKDI0
the studio arrangement is so much better.
― keef qua keef (Jordan), Friday, 15 February 2013 16:37 (eleven years ago) link
stream: http://amok.atomsforpeace.info
(it might be having mbv-like server issues at the moment)
― Eggs and the marketing board behind them, Monday, 18 February 2013 18:52 (eleven years ago) link
i love the eraser but so far i am not feeling this. i hope i'm wrong
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 18 February 2013 19:31 (eleven years ago) link
I am really liking this so far. Without all the bleeps and bloops, 'Stuck Together Pieces' wouldn't have been out of place on In Rainbows IMO.
― scubasteve, Monday, 18 February 2013 21:09 (eleven years ago) link
Gonna wait until I have the vinyl in hand before I listen.
Hopefully this week sometime.
― Austin, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 03:30 (eleven years ago) link
ok i really like this
― queeple qua queeple (Jordan), Tuesday, 19 February 2013 18:18 (eleven years ago) link
also for quitting halfway through the first track and redirecting me to a blog in spanish!?
― ledge, Wednesday, 20 February 2013 10:04 (eleven years ago) link
I did the sensible thing and downloaded it. It's pretty kinetic and muscular and textured in a way that wouldn't come through on a stream at all, unless you had amazing computer speakers.
'Head music for people who like head music' might be a better translation
It wouldn't, it's completely meaningless.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 20 February 2013 10:14 (eleven years ago) link
MTV Hive: With Atoms For Peace, Thom Yorke Becomes Aphex Twin’s Coldplay.
― Moka, Wednesday, 20 February 2013 17:08 (eleven years ago) link
flea's actually a pretty amazing musician and very capable of doing great bass parts that aren't slap n' pop
― in a chef-driven ambulance (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 18:47 (eleven years ago) link
otm
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 18:51 (eleven years ago) link
he did great slap n pop too
― administrator galina (Matt P), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 18:57 (eleven years ago) link
i'm not like a huge chilis guy, but for example, "scar tissue":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGObF2q63Ew
^that's just really ace melodic, in the pocket playing, wouldn't seem out of place coming from a great 60s and 70s session dude
― in a chef-driven ambulance (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 18:58 (eleven years ago) link
The bass playing on this record is up to par and goes great with the music, but it's also entirely servile and unremarkable. I just don't see why Flea, who is a bassist with a very distinctive style, had to play session musician-like bass on this record. As that's what it is.
― Le Bateau Ivre, Thursday, 21 February 2013 00:26 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, why should flea, who is kinda a master of his instrument, get to have fun and hang out and make music non-slappin' non-poppin' with dudes who are not fuckin' kiedis?
― inste grammophon (rogermexico.), Thursday, 21 February 2013 03:26 (eleven years ago) link
bet Thom Yorke is a ton of fun
― Number None, Thursday, 21 February 2013 16:39 (eleven years ago) link
had to play session musician-like bass on this record
how humiliating to have to play like duck dunn and james jamerson
― in a chef-driven ambulance (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 21 February 2013 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
Part of the reason it's so great is that it sounds so WARM, whereas a lot of the time recent Yorke electronic tracks sound sketchy and half-finished and only make sense when they're played live, there's a real fullness to the sound here.
Very much otm. Crit consensus seems to be that this is "cautious"/"static" and will flesh out live, but I feel like those were the problems with The Eraser that are here solved. It's tastefully understated in a way Yorke has never really achieved prior through his awkwardly self-conscious cribbing of more traditionally "electronic" styles.
― thistle supporter (mcoll), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 02:26 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.avclub.com/articles/atoms-for-peace-amok%2C92966/
― : ; : (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 09:07 (eleven years ago) link
new vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpVfF4U75B8
who wants to go clubbing w/ me to try out a few of these moves?
― you're going home in a crispy ambulance (cajunsunday), Thursday, 28 February 2013 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
So I was pleasantly surprised by this. Enough negative to lukewarm early reactions allowed my expectations to be sufficiently lowered. It is a surprisingly warm record, though (and I can't believe I'm going to say this) but I found myself wishing for MORE Flea. There's this one little bass riff that pops up towards the end of one of the songs that just sounds go good and not showy at all.
― HAPPY BDAY TOOTS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 28 February 2013 17:54 (eleven years ago) link
Geeky question: what's the difference between the deluxe and ordinary CDs, apart from two quid?
― djh, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:09 (eleven years ago) link
Quite a nice suit he's wearing in the video. Like his willingness to look a bit silly. Slightly reminded of that Saturday night TV program (name escapes me) where minor celebrities dance with ... people who can dance well.
― djh, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:16 (eleven years ago) link
nice grenson shoes
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:29 (eleven years ago) link
ancers: Thom Yorke and Fukiko TakaseDirector: Garth JenningsChoreographer: Wayne McGregor
http://atomsforpeace.infohttp://www.facebook.com/atomsforpeacehttp://xlrecordings.com
Production Company: STK FilmsProducer: Helen PowerDirector of Photography: Nick WoodEditor: Dominic Leung @ TrimFocus: Karl HuiGaffer: Paul AllenMake up: Carol Hart
With thanks to Trinity Laban, Norton & Sons, and Grenson.
― djh, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
pretty weird they get styled, given it's thom yorke. i suppose a video is a video.
love grenson.
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Thursday, 28 February 2013 20:05 (eleven years ago) link
I wonder how much impact it will have on sales for the companies thanked.
― djh, Thursday, 28 February 2013 22:21 (eleven years ago) link
i really like this record! a pretty groovy improvement on the eraser
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 12 March 2013 18:23 (eleven years ago) link
didnt pay attn to this but im really feeling the essential mix
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
yeah it's sick
― queeple qua queeple (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:13 (eleven years ago) link
What essential mix?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 14 March 2013 00:33 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qtckh
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 14 March 2013 01:06 (eleven years ago) link
Listening now. It's very cool, but the tracklist doesn't seem right? One of the first tracks is from Broadcast's Berberian Sound Studio ost and it's not listed.
― Simon H., Thursday, 14 March 2013 02:37 (eleven years ago) link
Finally had some free time to listen to this one today. On first listen the title track is my favorite one in here followed by Stuck Together Pieces, Ingenue and Reverse Running (probably the best structured song in here?).
The whole thing sounded a bit homogenic to my ears but there's nothing hateable in here, also lots of detail hidden throughout it so I might need to be in the right frame of mind (or using the right amount of drugs) for me to fall in love with it. It's certainly the sort of album that I would have loved about seven years ago.
― Moka, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 07:17 (eleven years ago) link
Just when I thought I was done with Thom Yorke this record pulls me back in, and not by doing anything dramatically different from the stuff I've found tiresome about him in recent years but just by doing it with such warmth and skill.
― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 11:11 (eleven years ago) link
I really love the first two tracks on this, can't get into the rest of it yet.
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 9 April 2013 15:53 (eleven years ago) link
Atoms For Peace - BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix
― davey, Sunday, 2 February 2014 15:01 (ten years ago) link
i've been giving this album another shot, it's tough to make it through a full listen but sounds amazing when you pick two random tracks and then bail.
― festival culture (Jordan), Friday, 25 April 2014 20:56 (ten years ago) link
Revisiting this in hopes that new Radiohead is incoming and am really liking it a lot more than I remember to have initially.
― Austin, Monday, 2 May 2016 19:15 (eight years ago) link
It's really strange how I like a lot of what Radiohead have put out over the years, yet I find their solo albums so totally, utterly unengaging. This one is no exception.
― Turrican, Monday, 2 May 2016 19:31 (eight years ago) link
Amok is really good
― done and dusted (Ross), Friday, 4 May 2018 05:57 (six years ago) link
sometimes i think you are my twin in terms of the music you like, ross. almost all my recently updated bookmarked threads have been revived by you...
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Friday, 4 May 2018 09:33 (six years ago) link
First time hearing “Hearing Damage” on a random playlist I was streaming and I thought I was listening to an Interpol song
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, 5 October 2020 06:17 (three years ago) link
I didn't really get into this album beyond the first two tracks.
― chap, Monday, 5 October 2020 10:33 (three years ago) link
https://i.imgflip.com/4he68b.jpg
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 5 October 2020 14:31 (three years ago) link