Underground Listmaker

This is a compilation post, featuring interview snippets and links from one of my favorite bands: Portishead. Gibbons, Barrow and Utley were a formidable force in the 90s UK trip hop (Bristol) scene, boasting two massively influential albums (plus a really excellent live album). After a long period of silence, they came out with the album  Third  in the late 2000s with a totally fresh and new sound. A notoriously reclusive band, any Portishead interview (especially with Beth!) I can get, I will take. This post is mostly for my own reference, to go back and read when I feel like it.

Kid A  is commonly regarded as one of two absolute masterpieces created by the English band Radiohead. A lot has been written about this album; musically, it's a huge shift from their 1997 album,  OK Computer . It leans much more into an experimental electronic direction, a change that, at the time, was not welcomed by all fans, but is now regarded as an important development in rock history. As I said, it's been written about  a lot . One possible interpretation of the album, however, really hasn't been explored as much as it could (or should) be. In my view,  Kid A  is not only a brilliantly experimental, musically challenging (and ultimately rewarding) listen, but is also a very well written concept album about nuclear apocalypse. Again, this is just my opinion, and Radiohead haven't specifically mentioned this interpretation in interviews, but it makes sense on a narrative and musical level. Radiohead - Kid A  ||  Released 2000  ||  Experimental Rock, Electronic  Be

Other Installments: One   ||  Three All of my album ratings for albums released this year (so far). This is the second installment. We've had a decent year so far. The top 10 on this list don't touch last year's, but it's early days yet. New additions to the list are are indicated. 1. Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She   ||  Darkwave, Post-Industrial, Trip Hop  ||  10/10  2. Allie X - Girl With No Face  ||  Synthpop, Darkwave, Electronic  ||  9.5/10 (NEW)  3. The Smile - Wall of Eyes  ||  Art Rock, Post-Rock, Krautrock  ||   9/10   4. Ally St. Ives - Dryleaze Marching Band   ||  Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Experimental  ||  9/10   5. Kim Gordon - The Collective  ||  Industrial Hip Hop, Trap, Experimental Rock, No Wave  ||  8/10 (NEW)  6. Sonic Youth - Walls Have Ears   ||  Noise Rock, No Wave, Archival  ||  8/10 (NEW)  7. Everything Everything - Mountainhead  | |  Synthpop, Art Pop, Indietronica  ||  7.5/10 (NEW)    8. Laetitia Sadier - Root

"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot  “A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think.” The Waste Land is one of the most impactful pieces of poetry that I have ever read. A British work written in the wake of WWI, it is an early example of modernism in poetry, and in fact inspired the entire literary movement almost on its own. It requires heavy interpretation and direct attention from the reader to understand and digest i