Radiohead - The King of Limbs

trying to figure out what ed o'brien plays on this album.

Shaky things.

i'm warming up to it. i like bloom, little by little, and codex, and separator is alright. the rest just kind of drift by.

"give up the ghost" is probably the weakest song. do not want

not sure what phil does, either. there are live drums in a few places, i suppose, but for the most part the entire album could be a drum machine and it wouldn't be that different. same with colin - the bass could just be keyboards, there's nothing that only colin could have played.

jonny's influence i can hear all over the place. so to me, this seems more like a thom+jonny joint than a solo thom thing, or a full band thing. which is fine, it's just...a different zone than the rest of their releases.

This is hardly a new thing though - it's difficult to hear what half the band did on Everything In Its Right Place or Backdrifts.

yeah, definitely, but sustained throughout the entire album.

I couldn't get into Separator until I started hearing it as a Sundays song.

for what it's worth, humans can definitely play like that!

I'm talking mostly about the way the drum part loops. Like you can tell the fill itself is played by a human but the way the ending and the beginning sync up so quickly is what makes it feel inhuman (to me, at least).

i think assuming that radiohead these days stick rigidly to their assigned live instruments in the studio is a bit of a mistake. unless they actually conduct any interviews around this album, it is going to be hard to tell who, if anyone, was dominant on this release.

Pretty interesting that they're one of the only 4+ member bands I can think of who've maintained exactly the same lineup for as long as they have, all things considered.

thom, thom's falsetto, thom's ego, thom's groove

Melissa - re: Give Up The Ghost and mastering, I haven't noticed any clipping and just had a look at the file in Audacity - there's loads of empty space and it barely ever hits digital zero. I haven't got a paid download but rather what I was told was a copy of a paid one (refuse to pay for it now and again on CD, which I'll be buying), so it could conceivably be an unmastered copy, but I'd be astonished if it wasn't the same set of files given Radiohead's release tactic.

I just opened it up in Audacity as well and the parts that clip/distort for me definitely clip in the file. It may not be as egregious as usual in terms of flattening, but the louder bits have been amplified far too much.

Can you post a screengrab so I can judge if I've got the same file?

http://i54.tinypic.com/14xp3r7.jpg

Just listened to mine again on my better pair of headphones and I'm not noticing any clipping.

Pretty interesting that they're one of the only 4+ member bands I can think of who've maintained exactly the same lineup for as long as they have, all things considered.

U2 is another one...hmmmmmm (hmmmmmm)

Same as me, pretty damn sure. Are you hearing clipping at circa 2:00, 2:45, etc?

Yes.

The more I listen to this, the more I feel like Thom Yorke may actually be the worst thing on this record?

I love the detailed, minimal production - so QUIET, all these silences and little underdone moments, recalling yeah Villalobos, Nicolas Jaar, etc. But Thom just can't crank things back enough, can't undersing enough (or doesn't, here) - he's overdoing it, for a record this understated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/Screenshot2011-02-21at191808.png%3Ft%3D1298315964

Zoomed right in; if it's there, it's really, really minor. Maybe your ears are more sensitive than mine - I've only listened to it about 4 times so far, and only twice off a really good set of headphones, but it's not struck me.

Fucking Photobucket piece of shit.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/Screenshot2011-02-21at191808.png

it doesn't seem like an overly squashed master to me (although it does sound shitty in my car; just low end and vocals, with all the detail in the middle getting wiped out).

It's odd that you can't hear it. At some of those peaks it distorts so much that it actually clicks at points. Tried it with different headphones, different programs, through my ipod, through a stereo, etc. Same sound every time.

The clipping probably comes from Radiohead using an unregistered version of WinRar making the archive files they sent out.

I'll listen again for it specifically circa 8pm when Em's gone out swimming.

x-post I think this would have been great minus York. Like, they could have released this as an instrumental EP, then released an album that fleshes out a few of the more promising sketches into stronger songs and drops them into a more compelling album.

that waveform doesn't look clipped or squished much at all, compared to like 90% of major label pop/rock records

There are audible distortion clicks at 0:31, 3:01, and 3:15, approx.

Do we really gotta wait for the print edition to come out before we read any reviews? a bit tired of critics giving music a pass because it's a "a grower", which is def not an attribute to be ignored but not reason for giving the album a great review either.

Um, it came out Friday with no warnings or promos. Give it some time, reviews are coming.

i hear the ones at 3:01 and 3:15 in the left channel but they're so perfectly on beat that i almost want to say its not digital clipping but someone tapping along in the studio or something. don't hear anything at 0:31

kel: did you not see the same-day reviews? often within an hour or two, basically a single listen? there are plenty of ppl out there treating this as NOT a grower if that's what yr looking for!

3:01 and 3:14/15 it clips in the left channel, pretty much in time to the beat (perhaps why I'd not noticed). The distortion 0:31 in is on Thom's voice I think, and dealable with, for me. Tiny moments of clipping I can tolerate if the rest of the elements don't run and bleed into each other massively, which is what I really hate, but yeah, it does seem like really clumsy mastering. Pointless.

xpost.

Basically, I can't wait for a vinyl rip.

I run headphones off my iMac through a DAC and my main CD player is a Rega Apollo = basically makes digital music sound less digital.

Well, I'm looking forward to it more because their mastering for vinyl tends to be quite different. A lot more range. I'd bet anything that the GUTG distortion won't be present on the vinyl version.

ilxor: I read the Guardian's but rly am more curious to see what "taste-makers" like p4k have to say about it. Radiohead's discography iirc is a unanimous 9.0+ thru-out. 10.0's at times. The Guardian's review doesn't really have a real opinion on it other than that, like most ops here, is a grower.

I'm not disputing the fact, I just tire of the band being able to get off by it's reputation and not the album's content absent of all else.

What, like you do with Wilco?

You're confusing me w/ someone else.

My apologies; I'm not around here often enough these days to keep track of who everyone is.

Anyway, a few more listens - this album REALLY sounds like Caribou and Four Tet at points, which I think is why I'm enjoying it.

http://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/more-thoughts-on-the-king-of-limbs/

Yerr there was a point in ilxor history where members were renaming themselves "kellypolaris"/"kelspolaris" and such. Can't even remember when, it seems way past the point where I orig got 51'd

hilarious choice of images w/ the blog

Haha, thank you; one does one's best to match the image to the content...

erm haha i mean excellent, not hilarious; i just chuckled at the literal black swan for the black swan article and then realized i am a very dull human being

I ran this through MP3Gain before playing it ever (I use an ipod so I have no choice) and I'm hearing the same distortion, but honestly, apart from the on-beat taps mentioned above, it just sounds like Yorke's voice track was handled horribly during recording or engineering. It doesn't have that ceiling-mash sound from which so much '00s music suffers.

pretty sure that the vocal distortion you guys are talking about is intentional, i don't think it's caused by mastering or ia supposed to sound super clean

I assumed that to begin with tbh. This album (Ghost in particular) is clearly not meant to be highly polished. Oh and I cbf going back to this album either.

MP3Gain before playing it ever (I use an ipod so I have no choice)

you can just use your volume knob when you need to.

uh