Round-up Tracks: Radiohead, James Blake, & More

Radiohead aren’t invincible. Their previous album, 2011’s ‘The King of Limbs’, was far from their best. ‘Burn the Witch’ is just one song off their upcoming ninth record, and Radiohead can’t answer their critics in one go. But it does possess a sense of adventure and a warmth that was lacking in their last record. Whereas before they’d splinter a beat, give a nod to jazz and be done with it, this single merges opposites. Jonny Greenwood’s had a field day with the orchestral arrangements, and they run in parallel to croaking synth lines and simple, electronic drum patterns. What’s more, it gets to the point. Thom Yorke goes straight for the jugular with gutsy melodies. There’s no faffing about, no point dithering. That was always the hidden skill of records like ‘In Rainbows’ or even the more minimal ‘Kid A’. They knew where to take a song, without getting caught up in messy detail.

The song’s existed for over a decade, in fragmented form. It was in the running for inclusion on ‘In Rainbows’, but it never made the cut. Fans have only heard snippets of a brooding piano line similar to ‘Pyramid Song’. But it’s arrived in a completely different, final form. ‘Burn the Witch’ mixes the sinister with the gutsy, like the very best Radiohead songs. Comfort zone? What comfort zone? (Jamie Milton)

There’s few vocal pairings as perfect as James Blake and Bon Iver. ‘Fall Creek Boys Choir’ proved that half a decade ago, and its follow-up earlier this year cemented their status as the most cuddly power-couple in the game. On ‘I Need A Forest Fire’, they up the ante. Like a soundtrack to the most remote camping trip in the brochure, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more instantly intimate offering this year. (Tom Connick)

Who else could make all the bird-chiping, hype-gaining, blizzard of rumours worth it? The past seven days could be put down as a serious waste of time, if it wasn’t for Radiohead releasing two startling, ambitious songs to rival their finest moments.

It feels like they’ve been saving their most devastatingly beautiful moment until now. Sod the eight albums that existed before. Every speck of ‘Daydreaming’ is emotionally-driven, from barely-there atmospherics to the simplest, roundabout piano line Thom Yorke’s delivered in years. It’s stupidly pretty. Bleak as hell, too, when you peer below the surface.

“This goes beyond me, beyond you,” sings Yorke, in signature abstraction. In that line, he sums up Radiohead when they’re at their best. These songs take you out of the everyday. There’s a transcendence that goes way beyond fun nonsense like teaser videos and will-they-won’t-they gossip. Radiohead are masters of mystery, but they know when to strike when it matters. (Jamie Milton)

If there’s anyone who’s bloody decent at penning songs for films, it’s Charli XCX. Her massive single ‘Boom Clap’ started out soundtracking John Green’s mushy sob-fest ‘The Faults in Our Stars,’ after all. And now – with her new album apparently finished - she’s written a song for the Angry Birds film. Good grief.

Aside from a few brief references to tumbling cities and unspecified quantities of dynamite, ‘Explode’ thankfully has very little to do with the Angry Birds franchise. Instead it pulses with the kind of unbridled, gaudy joy that rarely exists outside Eurovision. As always, Charli’s infectiously bratty, unaffected vocal runs amock, cavorting amid Justice-territory bass licks and jaunty synth-chirps like a pop-punk obsessed gremlin. Not bad at all for a song about an iPhone app. (El Hunt)

Underpinned by the tenacious flicker of a short-circuiting drum machine, and flitting between glossy lyrical naivety and sexually charged second meanings, Mitski’s latest dwells in the shadows, in stark contrast to ‘Happy’s seemingly cheerful title. Appearing in the guise of a visiting lover- and departing just as quickly leaving cookie wrappers and tea stains in his wake - happiness makes a brief enough cameo in ‘Happy’. For the most part, though, this is a song about what happens once happiness has fled the scene; the tidying up, sadness, and exhausting anger that lives and thrives on the flip-side.

Bearing bittersweet half-echoes of St Vincent at her most unsettling and melancholy, Mitski bends starkly personal statements around warped, experimental corners. Like a freakish hall of mirrors, nothing takes on a predictable shape, either. Tearing through sinister nursery rhymes, parping saxophone rips, and right back to those troubling, empty bass-pounds, ‘Happy’ gives few resolutions. The only sure-fire fact? ‘Puberty 2’ is shaping up into one special record. (El Hunt)

There’s more to Yak than all-out noise. Sure, they might be masters of madness, channeling fury into their every off-the-cuff move, but pull back the discordance and scrape off the grime and there’s a glimmering heart to it all. On ‘Take It’, that melodic side faces forward like never before.

Shivery and brooding, that signature sound of thick-as-mud fuzz is shackled up. Oli Burslem murmurs his way through its opening minutes, his usual full-throated scream replaced by a bleary-eyed, out-of-breath exasperation. Rhythmic repetition still rules Yak’s roost, but this time it ties those knots ever-tighter, rather than bludgeoning you into submission.

By the time things inevitably erupt, those carefully assembled blocks tumbling down, Yak have made their point clear. Debut album ‘Alas Salvation’ is a shapeshifter - to pin Yak as one-track-minded noiseniks would be a very silly mistake indeed. (Tom Connick)

Danish punk is having a moment, no doubt. But beyond the ferocity and the menace, there’s a great deal of beauty behind Iceage’s ugly strides, or Lower’s default snarl. Not to box them in, Yung have always painted with different shades to their peers. But new song ‘The Child’ is the first time they’ve married their escapist trade with true beauty.

It came about when frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær was working on a crop farm, making songs in his downtime because there was nothing else to do. “When you start playing music you do it for the sake of writing music but when you’re signed to a label there’s commercial pressure,” he says, somewhat bleakly adding: “There are good things and bad things about that. One of the good things certainly is that you have to reinvent yourself within or beyond your music, which I tried to do.” ‘The Child’, in this case, emerged out of a strange strife, the compromise between making music for the sake of it and trying to stand out in a crowd. But through the song’s simple, pattered piano and strung-out sense of adventure, Yung have taken an exciting next step. (Jamie Milton)

Tags: James Blake, Radiohead, Listen, Features