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Rainbow Worriers

• Stuart Bailie
• 10 Oct 07, 10:06 AM

Normally I don¡¯t get too excited about musical downloads, but when the new Radiohead album wibbled down my wires there was a feeling of fun and conspiracy. Many thousands of other people were doing the very same thing. There was no record label or a middleman to collect a slice of the money. In fact, you could literally dictate your own terms.

I paid a decent amount, considering that these are unsampled goods. But it was nowhere near the fee they¡¯d normally charge you at the online store. The new, exceptionally awful Annie Lennox album costs a tenner to download ¨C more than the physical artefact costs in the supermarket. And they wonder why the industry is banjaxed?

So now I¡¯m the owner of ¡®In Rainbows¡¯. I¡¯ve burnt it onto CD and made a little paper sleeve. And I¡¯m currently listening to the tunes. I¡¯m recalling how we journalists were invited to a preview of ¡®Kid A¡¯ in a converted stable in Camden town, as computerised spotlights strafed the room, mournfully. Why schedule a mere record release when you can provoke an event?

¡®In Rainbows¡¯ isn¡¯t an immediate sack of laughs. Thom has that neurotic halt in his voice as the tunes hurtle upwards and your ribcage stiffens. There are jazz excursions and moderne drum sequences. There¡¯s a wash of dread over the proceedings that sends you back to ¡®Amnesiac¡¯ and ¡®Kid A¡¯, which I personally wasn¡¯t hoping to hear.

On tracks like ¡®House Of Cards¡¯ you suspect that there¡¯s a critique of the age in the surprisingly balmy grooves. It¡¯s only fair. The tune is actually reminiscent of ¡®Going Back¡¯ by The Byrds, and Yorke lilts the phrase ¡°infrastructure will collapse¡± like a despairing Jeremiah.

¡®All I Need¡¯ is a love song with a tragic warp. The author says he feels like an insect and you¡¯re immediately thinking about Kafka. And so we crawl off to the record¡¯s closing statement, a meditation on death, the afterlife and analogue recording platforms. Let¡¯s hear it for ¡®Videotape¡¯. It¡¯s most definitely art and the band play to the extremes of their ability. But does it actually mean something to me? Not yet, it doesn¡¯t.

Stu Bailie presents The Late show on Radio Ulster, every Friday from 10pm until midnight. See his playlist here.

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