low art

despite the fact that they aren't on television anymore ever, and most people don't have the patience to sit through any kind of slow build on the internet, music videos are still resolutely awesome every now and then, and the best ones are often made by amateurs and first timers. This one is my favourite song off the new Radiohead album, mashed up to clips from the film Microcosmos.


This is right up there with my all time favourite amatuer video, for the song "the Funeral" by Band of Horses


The new Radiohead album is awesome. Not that I didn't like parts of their recent experimental work, but it seemed to me like they were writing deliberately inefficient songs. When listening to Kid A or Amnesiac, I didn't feel anything as hard or as deep as when I listened to their previous albums. They seemed to need entire songs to evoke the same disquieted self-reflective emotional state as "Lucky" induced in it's first line, and frankly it seemed like that was the only emotion they were interested in exploring across their last three albums . There are parts of Kid A, and songs on Amnesiac and Hail that I do really love, but I find I rarely listen to them because they just don't "work" on me fast enough. Or rather, that the energy it takes to listen to them greatly outstrips the extent to which I feel enriched or changed because of them. The new album, I am happy to say, is somewhat of a return to efficiency. They are still far from conventional, but they are no longer afraid to write songs that make you feel something directly and instantly.

Also, I think it's worth that noting that what they seem to make you want to do is have sex. There are at least 3 songs on this album that are, I think, designed to be slow jamz. The first time I head Reckoner I couldn't help but picture grainy footage of pasty indie kids with just a touch too much red wine in them awkwardly making out then stumbling towards the bed, tearing off each others scarf's and black rim glasses as they do. Seriously, the second half of in Rainbows is totally for fucking to, and maybe for being depressed as you do. That being said, I love doing it to My Bloody Valentine, and no one else seems to, so clearly I don't understand sexy.

Here's a difficult listen but a remarkably efficient song: New Buildings by Parts and Labour


an even harder listen by Xiu Xiu thanks to the initially abominable but then strangely hypnotic vocals. Both of these songs are highly efficient to me, they say what they want to say and make you feel the way they want you to feel within a few seconds.


and then play Parts and Labour again because it's just such an awesome song.

and then play this because it is the easiest most efficient song to listen to ever. It makes me so pumped for life, even if life that day is just making a sandwich and watching a movie, doesn't matter, with this song I am so happy to be doing it.