The impossible is now possible.
Radiohead have come back from a well-deserved but decade-long victory lap, making truly fascinating music again. This is vital stuff, the kind of work that will actually justify the coming weeks of breathless dissection. It’s more deserving of the clichéd descriptors that critics have reflexively thrown at the band – haunting, gorgeous, unnerving, innovative – than anything they’ve ever recorded.
Radiohead dropped a song out of nowhere last Tuesday. It was good enough to fill me with hope for the first time in over a decade. Then they did the seemingly impossible: released a second pre-album single, three days later, that was better than the first.
As if fans wouldn’t have gone crazy enough with a simple, “we’ve got a new album” tweet, the band went for a full-blown now you have my attention moment:
This week felt heavy, swallowed by darkness, but I worked through it and kept pushing. I climbed up until I felt the final warmth of the sun on my skin. I got on my bike and kept going, further every day. I had some hard talks with those closest to me, and I now feel a peaceful sense of clarity about this moment in life.
I also listened to some amazing new music that both eased and enhanced my journey.
Deadbeat, aka Scott Monteith, is a dub techno artist from Montreal, perpetually approaching the genre with an outsider ear. Although he currently resides in frosty genre mecca Berlin, his music is still refreshingly focused, strange, warped fingerprints everywhere.
I began this mix in 2011, when I last returned to Michigan. In the midst of feeling directionless and alone, I was trying to start again, build something, connect myself with bigger ideas. Instead, I nearly ruined my life.
I was on a collision course with something terrible, and I had no idea it was coming.
One of the biggest pleasures in music is the feeling of hearing an artist sprout new wings, soar over new territory, doing something completely unexpected. We love to chart trajectories and project the future onto the nearest wall. We love to dissect an artist, especially an up-and-coming one, to see what makes them tick. But despite all indications that they’re going to swerve right, they sometimes veer left. Some are left grasping for nothing; I’m excited to chase through unknown places.
This week’s real world brought a deadly terrorist attack in Belgium, while the music world brought the premature death of a hip-hop hero. It was downers all around, and I struggled personally with some dark moments too. At least in my own case, I try to meditate, focus, and seek the healing power of art. This is how I keep perspective.
It’s also how I end up sharing music. Here we go:
Optimistic Underground 