Benji B’s radio show, as I often enthuse around these parts, is a regular show I try to delve into every week – taking in hip-hop, dance, electronic, house, grime and general underground club tracks.
Most weeks he has a guest of some kind whether in the studio or in the mix. This week’s is Thom Yorke of Radiohead who joins Benji and plays some favourite tracks as a co-presenter over three hours. The pair play back to back for the entire duration and play a lot of tunes including music from Burial, Girl Band, Liquid Liquid, James Blake, Vince Staples, Abul Mogard and Dilla in there.
Of Girl Band’s ‘Paul’, Yorke said it was his and his son’s favourite music (about 35 minutes in). They are from Dublin Thom not Belfast.
On Phil Taggart’s BBC Radio 1 show last night, Thom Yorke provided a 30 minute mix of lullaby-style music to help send you to sleep in the best way possible. It’s mostly very chilled until the 22 minute mark.
The tracklist looks like this:
THOM YORKE FROM RADIOHEAD BEDTIME MIX
Charlemagne Palestine & Robert Fledman – Electronic and Flute Luke Abbott – Dumb Radiohead – Melatonin Radiohead & Thom Yorke – Bloom (Live ) William Winant – Trackings 1 James Holden – Triangle Folds Inside Out Laurie Spiegel – The Unquestioned Answer
While most of the music world awaits a new Radiohead album this year ( artist Stanley Donwood says it’s nearly done and it’s a ‘work of art’ – he would say that), Thom Yorke’s voice has appeared on a new track from Mark Pritchard from the UK producer’s forthcoming Under The Sun album on Warp Records.
‘Beautiful People’ finds Yorke singing in treated and original form over a flute melody, synth notes and some light percussion. It’s beautifully effective as a piece of music.Under The Sun is released on May 12th which also features Bibio, Linda Perhacs and Beans. Tracklisting below.
Designed to be listened to in one sitting, ‘Under The Sun’ achieves what most albums aim for but rarely achieve – perfect synergy. Where the potential of the sum of the parts, the individual tracks, resonate even more fully when experienced as part of the whole album. ‘Under The Sun’ is one story told in chapters and, as with any good story, the spell is only maintained if you don’t skip to the end. Pritchard, as usual, defies easy categorization and that is what gives depth and nuance to this work. He draws on the sounds and influences genetically coded in his musical DNA; ambient, nu-wave, avant-garde electronics and folk; but reimagines them through an otherworldly filter that cements Under The Sun somewhere in the future, rather than the past. This is a personal work, innovative and brave from the opening drone of ‘?’ to the delicate bass-heavy ambience of the closing title track, ‘Under The Sun’. It’s an emotional exploration but without ever becoming manipulative. In every moment there is space for the listener to imagine and project their own meaning, allowing it to become more subjective and more intimate with each listen. Recalled memory is an important theme here and a sense of the English West Country of Pritchard’s youth echoes through the album. Certain musical moods recur, particularly a kind of tonality that he half-seriously refers to as “medieval”, a way with chords and melodies, and also a sense of storytelling, that most obviously comes through the psychedelic influences on the Thom Yorke and Linda Perhacs collaborations ‘Beautiful People’ and ‘You Wash my Soul’. Each song evokes a different sensibility, the classic Global Communication style space voyaging of ‘EMS’ and ‘Sad Alron’, can sit alongside the dark poetry and vintage avant-garde synthesis of ‘The Blinds Cage’ with Beans from Antipop Consortium, and the tropicalia and Beach Boys influences of Bibio, all on the same record.
‘Under The Sun’ is available to preorder on Vinyl, CD and Digital formats:
Bloc returns from 11 to 13 March 2016 in Butlins Resort Minehead near Bristol with an impressive lineup including:
Thom Yorke – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes / Four Tet / Jeff Mills / Floating Points / Carl Craig – Modular Pursuits / Ben Klock / Nina Kraviz / Omar-S / Evian Christ / Holly Herndon / Motor City Drum Ensemble / Rødhåd / Trade ft. Surgeon & Blawan / Steve Davis ( the snooker player is a keen selector) / Tama Sumo b2b Lakuti / Andrew Weatherall b2b Optimo / Steffi / Ben UFO / Magic Mountain High ft. Move D, Juju & Jordash / Bicep / Daniel Avery / Helena Hauff / Ugandan Methods ft. Regis & Ancient Methods / Midland / Jimmy Edgar / Fast Eddie / Lone / Objekt / Daniel Miller / Demdike Stare / Powell / ItaloJohnson / James Ruskin / Laurel Halo / Lakker / Dasha Rush / Fatima Yamaha / Rrose / Dom & Roland / Sandrien / Kahn / d:Bridge / Shanti Celeste / Ø [Phase] / Aurora Halal / Jane Fitz / DJ Skirt / JoeFarr / Steevio & Suzybee
Early bird tickets are sold out but chalets are available from £179 + fees. More info.
The Nialler9 TXFM show airs every Thursday night at 10pm for two hours. You can listen live on 105.2FM, online, the TXFM app or if you missed it, on the listen back function on the site, as per below. The show starts six minutes in, right after the news in each hour. Click the buttons to launch the TXFM site autoplaying links.
In a world in which U2 give away an album and Beyoncé releases an A/V album, it’s natural other established musicians with fanbases eager to hear material will do something similar. In Thom Yorke’s case, given Radiohead’s background of experimental release mechanisms and his outspoken thoughts about the music industry, it’s no surprise then that Yorke has thrown his hat into another ring: a paid Bittorrent bundle for his new 8-track album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is on sale right now for $6 with a couple of free tracks available for trying out (It’s also available on vinyl).
The album is a followup to his solo album The Eraser and the first track, ‘A Brain In A Bottle’ is similarly electronic in tone to that album.
Here is the letter from Thom and producer Nigel Godrich.
As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files.. The files can be anything, but in this case is an ‘album’. It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around … If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done. The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey. It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front… The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network. Oh yes and it’s called Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. Thom Yorke & Nigel Godrich
Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes Tracklisting
01 A Brain In A Bottle 02 Guess Again 03 Interference 04 The Mother Lode 05 Truth Ray 06 There Is No Ice (For My Drink) 07 Pink Section 08 Nose Grows Some
Apparently Sisi BakBak is Thom Yorke but regardless, this sturdy remix appears on the new ‘Hold On’ 12″ available digitally on Monday through XL if you buy the vinyl. The vinyl also features ‘Ride To Freedom’:
Thom Yorke made a bass-heavy mix (some greatmixesknocking about this week) for Mary Anne Hobbs new radio show on XFM. In the tracklist, is an excerpt from a new Thom Yorke song, a few of the recent Radiohead remixes from Modeselektor, Blawan and Thriller Houseghost as well as a Thom remix of John Matthias and Four Tet’s Tinariwen remix. Perfect for a friday.
Money Back Mix
John Matthias (with Nick Ryan) – ‘Cortical Songs’ (Thom Yorke Remix)
Thom Yorke – ‘The Twist’ (unreleased excerpt)
Modeselektor – ‘Art & Cash’ (Bok Bok & Roska remix)
With Modeselektor’s Monkeytown appearing at the end of the month, tracks from the album which features Thom Yorke, PVT, Anti Pop Consortium & Otto Von Schirach have started to trickle out. Here’s Busdriver’s collab – ‘Pretentious Friends’ and both Thom Yorke’s contributions.
Was it really April when we heard Thom Yorke remix DOOM for the first time? Well a remix EP is finally ready and the tracklisting includes the original ‘Gazzillion Ear’ with remixes from Dr Who Dat?, a Jneiro Jnel/Dave Sitek combo remix and the aforementioned Yorkeypoos rework. The 12″ vinyl with instrumentals, acapellas and bonus DJ scratch is out on January 11th 2010. Pre-ordering.
Most interesting, sign up to the mailing list and get an exclusive Madvillain (Madlib and DOOM) remix.
Before normal service resumes, a little bit of housekeeping..
Nialler9 won the Best Music Site at the Irish Web Awards 2009 on Saturday! Thanks to all who were involved be it in voting, judging, organising the thing (Mr. Mulley, Rick and co.) It’s the best goddamn web awards going. Sure where else would you get bags of crisps and rude t-shirts thrown into the audience? Great stuff. Full ist of winners here.
This weekend sees Hard Working Class Heroes kick off again and there are a number of things I’m involved in worthy of your time. As well as participating in the speed sessions in The Button Factory on Saturday from 10.30am – 1pm along with the people listed on the left here, there will be an interesting panels taking place in the same venue at 2pm. Media – Why The First, Last And Middle Words Are Online will take a look at the impact of online music coverage from MP3 blogs to music sites and how these websites affect bands. Chaired by Jim Carroll, the panel will consist of myself, Sean Adams (Drowned in Sound – the UK’s premier indie music site?), Anthony Volodkin (creator of The Hype Machine – seriously interesting dude), James Foley of the online music industry newsletter Record of The Day and Una Mullally (Unarocks, Sunday Tribune, Soundcheck) It’s a great mix of people so try and make it along if you can. (Free entry for anyone with a valid day / weekend wristband). More panels here.
Finally, next week, I’ll be hitting CMJ in New York so expect some bits and pieces on that then.
Finally: here’s a Youtube audio of the excellent ‘Slow Life’, Grizzly Bear featuring Victoria of Beach House’s contribution to the New Moon Twilight soundtrack. A few more from Thom Yorke, Lykke Li and Bon Iver & St. Vincent after the jump.
‘Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses’ is available for pre-order but some people got their copies in the post early and naturally, the tracks are on the net.
Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses is seven minutes long and appears to have a quasi-Celtic diversion about 4 and a half minutes in.
The Hollow Earth is closer to The Eraser material in tone.
These tracks aren’t as strong as ‘These Are My Twisted Words’ and ‘Harry Patch’ though. [Thanks to J for the tip]
Before normal service resumes, a little bit of housekeeping..
‘Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses’ is available for 
