Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

I'm sure there's some degree of strategy behind the staggering, but may it not also be because of manufacturing times for the physical versions? I don't know about the feasibility of being able to have the CDs & vinyl ready at the point of digital release if you want to maintain secrecy on the details of the album, which they clearly did.

Yeah, but if I buy the CD several weeks in advance I'd expect an immediate download, in mp3 format at least, if not 24bit wav.

Reminds me of either Aphex Twin's Syro or Boards Of Canada's Tomorrow's Harvest (I can't recall precisely which and perhaps it was both) arriving at our record shop in boxes from the pressing plant stickered with manufacturing labels with fake artist name/album title and catalogue numbers, so they must have been pressed using fictitious info from Warp to try and prevent leaks.

Oh, yes, I absolutely agree with that! That's a sly and disappointing move on their part.

If you've already ordered and paid for the CD, or committed to spending money on it, it should be extremely easy to find yourself a digital version through other means. It's only one of the biggest releases of the year.

Yeah, I'd have no qualms about that.

Oh, I know. There's also at least one free & legal stream of the whole album out there (link posted above).

I was just a bit annoyed that, after paying for the CD upfront I'd have to wait, while those who bought the download get it straight away. There's no real justification for this other than trying to get me to buy it twice ...

Or trying to get you to buy the expensive special edition, which was the only physical pre-order to come with an immediate download included. Which I did, as it ended up looking like the best deal, partly for that reason.

Is anybody else getting any Traffic (the band) top notes from this record?

Tomorrow's Harvest is OTM. It's got that same bleak, wandering-in-a-nuclear-winterland resolute daze. A late career album that jettisons reckless experimentation for smoothness and confidence. Same as Avalon I guess.

yeah im getting some Bark Psychosis vibes from this too, prob why i love it so much

For me this is the most consistently enjoyable album they've released since OK Computer. I like plenty of post-Kid A stuff, but as I've said a few times, those albums always felt disjointed, awkward. This is solid, consistent, confident in itself. I absolutely adore it.

consistent

Amazing how well the album flows, considering the track ordering appears to have been selected alphabetically.

I also got Bark Psychosis vibes from this, I think partly because it reminds me a bit of A Field of Reeds too. AMSP has less eclectic instrumentation but is probably more focussed and overall better, mind.

Amazing how well the album flows, considering the track ordering appears to have been selected alphabetically.

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 9:22 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm gonna go ahead and assume that a little more thought went into the sequencing/titling of those tracks than thom yorke toggling the arrow at the top of the 'name' column

Yeah, the alphabetical titles thing has got to be a joke based on early-leak albums that aren't indexed / meta-data'd properly yet, when they all appear in a folder alphabetically and you think "is this finished? what order do they go in?". If you plant that as a concept relatively early on you're then free to gerrymander song titles to fit the sequencing of songs you like. After all, what do Radiohead song titles refer to these days? Are they a refrain? An opening line? A snatch of verse lyric? An oblique reference? They've been all of the above, so just fiddle with them until you've got it.

I'm also faintly dubious about the 'magic' of sequencing albums anyway; unless there's some kind of lyrical narrative going on I think half the time it doesn't really matter all that much.

It totally matters, but the sequencing on this is pretty much perfect anyway.

Decks Dark is a real grower, lovely melodies and some subtly funky bass.

Haven't really got into Present Tense or Identikit (I think the guitar solo sounds crap, sorry), the rest are great.

xp I think it matters a lot too, and Radiohead have been a case in point. I'd hold up OKC as an album that has been perfectly sequenced, with Thom saying around the time that he would take long walks with the songs on a minidisc, trying them out in different orders etc. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It flows really well and doesn't feel like it's repeating itself. Since then, I've found that most Radiohead albums frustrate me with their sequencing, which kind of messes up the listening experience for me. I won't go into the details as I've mentioned them several times already, but yeah, getting your album to work as a piece is an important part of making it 'an album' as opposed to 'a bunch of tracks'.

It's a shitty title.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 4:21 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is def radiohead's 'Avalon'.

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 8:02 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ILX always be saying things I was gonna say before I say them

I agree that the album was probably sequenced first and the songs titled second, and not the other way around. Which, if you're an 'indeterminacy / oblique strategies' type person, is actually pretty cool.

"Ful Stop" is my current fav btw

Will buy the CD on Amazon when it's like $8.99 or something and will enjoy an inexpensive and uninterrupted listen free of pops, clicks and slight warping. I'll just have to break up weed on Houses of the Holy instead, fine w that

Ful Stop is great, a highlight, but it also includes those bits with Thom going 'Argh! Argh!', which is the only bit of the album I don't like so far.

At least half of these songs have been around for years, so either they've been playing a VERY long game with this alphabetical sequencing wheeze, or the album is so of-a-piece that the alphabetical sequence sounds as coherent as any other might have done.

probably the latter. the bookends of burn the witch/true love waits feel quite right though.

Which is why I think sequencing is often not that important...

It depends on the diversity of sounds and moods on the album to some extent, I've heard so many albums (Random Access Memories springs to mind) kill the momentum by dropping a really slow/low-key track in second. Imagine OK Computer with Climbing Up The Walls as the second track.

Yeah, it depends totally on the individual album in question, but, as with AMSP, sometimes if the bookends work order the middle's in isn't that important, especially if the overall feel is very cohesive. Don't get me wrong, I think some albums totally fucked-up their sequencing, but I think lots could be changed slightly, or even significantly, and not suffer that much. I also reckon a lot of album sequencing is probably quite arbitrary on behalf of the artists...

Didn't Thom sequence OKC by shuffling and reshuffling it on a minidisc over weeks and weeks...

see dog latin 7 posts up

"burn the witch" is very emblematic of what radiohead does well at their best, taking elements of more avant garde music (steve reich in this case) and applying it to a more pop song format for a different audience and making it sound organic

Uh, the middle part of an album's track order is very important, otherwise you could end up with an LP that sags in the middle.

i believe that sequencing an album like it's still a vinyl product (whether or not it is) is helpful, thinking of "side A" and "side B" breaks it down better

^^ I agree. Thinking about a the middle tracks as side one closer and side two opener is a good way to keep the album from sagging in the middle and gives the album a natural structure.

It's a double LP though ;)

I really like this album so far, I will say the acoustic I Might Be Wrong version of True Love Waits is one of my favorite Radiohead songs, so it is a little jarring to hear the piano-led interpretation here. I'll probably get used to it though, it is very pretty.

would someone tell radiohead to stop putting out single LP releases as double LPs? shit's annoying

one of the reasons I don't like buying vinyl of newer albums is having to switch sides 4 times in 50 minutes

Will buy the CD on Amazon when it's like $8.99 or something and will enjoy an inexpensive and uninterrupted listen free of pops, clicks and slight warping. I'll just have to break up weed on Houses of the Holy instead, fine w that

― Wimmels, Tuesday, May 10, 2016 11:01 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Listening to this now. It's not very exciting, is it? The first track to make me really take notice since Daydreaming is Identikit, and I'm listening pretty intently

Identikit now reminding me of Santana, and not in a good way

i feel like there's a certain weird strawman thing of using album covers to clean dope on, i feel like ppl say that a lot more than they do it

Identikit now reminding me of Santana, and not in a good way

― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 2:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this literally makes no sense did you just grab santana's name out of the "random classic rock references" bin?

Maybe imago works for VNYL

the last minute reminded me of that 'turn your lights on' track off of supernatural which i was forced to listen to at school coz it had 'smooth' on it

anyway, this album really isn't for me. a shame coz 'daydreaming' really got my hopes up but it's by a zillion miles the best track so far

hey now

It's odd. The start of this album is very gripping, but after Ful Stop it seems to just fade away and becomes very samey - ok, plain boring - to my ears. Which is a shame, because in theory I really like the idea of this being their Avalon, as DL said.

Present Tense is almost good

the only dip for me is 'Present Tense' and 'Tinker Tailor'. 'Identikit' is probably my fave so far, and 'Daydreaming' (which has really grown on me after not making much of an initial impression).

xp sound like 'maria, maria' to you?

Tinker Tailor...shaping up to be my second favourite track!