Look What You Made Me Do!

Christian Whisper

2007-11-21T20:18:00.000Z

Take a quick look at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSL218386120071121

When you have a religion that espouses “Turn[ing] the other cheek” as a major principle (Matthew 5:38-42, NIV, Bible™ fans!) then you have to expect to be ignored after a while. A predatory school-yard bully will only hunt where the meat is tastiest and at its most succulent, which is when the victim shudders and its fear-centre’s hormone production reaches crisis-point. No hunter worth his salt ever got an adrenaline buzz from the quarry taking every attack on the chin: There’s no sport in it.

But now the Christian Voice, their maws flecked with foam and spittle, are desperately trying to grab any attention they can before the belief-well runs dry and the last of their deluded kind keels over and finally – quietly - dies. They seem to have had enough - as the website slogan goes - of the “Enemies of God” who are “all having their say” (which clearly means Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is on hold)! So desperate are they for attention and support that they drag the, frankly, dull ‘Jerry Springer – the Opera’ through the courts with a blasphemy law that hasn’t seen the light of day since 1977 when it was last used by the Wicked Witch of Warwickshire: Mary Whitehouse (Loony Christian TV activist).

I can just imagine Stephen Green (the grisly and gnarled head of the Christian Voice) and an army of blank-eyed solicitors scratching through every law book they could lay their translucent hands on; desperate to make those smug BBC heretics pay for their insolence. Imagine their faces when they found the blasphemy precedent in some musty old tome in a forgotten library vault; they must have felt like David picking the pebbles by the river that would finally fell the mighty Goliath. Anyone else with any sense would look on at their escapades with a piteous and heavy-heart because, at the end of the day, no-one gives a damn.

But there is hope for you and your cronies, Steve; in the shape of my good self. I offer you and yours a chance, bundled along with my invaluable media expertise, as long as you are okay with working with a dyed-in-the-wool unbeliever, heretic and fully paid-up degenerate.

All for a small fee of course but we can discuss that later.

If you can bring yourself to side with the enemy, however briefly, for the greater good (never forget the greater good) then we can get down to the task of getting you boys and girls into the public consciousness. Can you make a deal with the Devil? Because that is who I’ll be, the swarthy agent offering you fame and fortune if only you’d show just a little more flesh.

Good to have you aboard.

Now: to gain a sure-fire hit in this the age of mechanical reproduction you should always use ideas from a tried and tested model; that way you can’t possibly go wrong. The media has, after all, become a business where taking chances is viewed as welcome as a gun in a schoolyard. The model that I suggest you try to adopt is one that has never failed to garner whatever attention they want on any number of occasions and that forces artists, TV executives and journalists to self-censor; saving themselves a lot of hard work.

I think you should follow the example set by radical Islam.

Now, now, Steve; stop foaming at the mouth and hear me out. I know you believe Islam to be a “Counterfeit rather than a logical continuation of Judaism and Christianity.” I know you also believe it operates in a “draconian way… control[ing] the minutiae of everyday living”, so pipe down. I can tell that you see that Islam has certain qualities, ones that you look on yourself with hungry eyes. Come off it, Steve! You are paying me a fortune to help you, don’t throw thinly veiled lies at me! You wrote yourself that “their religion rules the whole of their lives and they say it should rule the whole of politics… Reformed Christianity should be the same.” If that isn’t faith-envy, what is?

Islam has an undeniably amazing media presence, especially in last twenty-odd years, totally circumnavigating the usual media routes and always using the latest in technology. As a religion it is clearly the most talked about. Remember back a few years, Steve, some cartoonists came up with a smashing idea: they drew a picture of Mohammed and a bomb in a Danish Newspaper. There were riots, protests, clerics demanding the heads of the cartoonists for no less than $1 million and all kinds of other crazy vibes. Everything went a little insane back in those hell-fire days, you had to pay attention.

What did you guys do when Jesus was portrayed as “a little bit gay”? You handed out leaflets and blocked a run of the show where the ticket money would have gone to a cancer charity.

That’s not the way to win ‘hearts and minds’ now is it, Stevie-boy? If the creators of ‘Jerry Springer – the Opera’ said the same thing about Mohammed then Islamic radicals would have been all over them: bag’s over their heads they would have been dragged kicking and screaming to some idling beat-up rust bucket of a van with a machete firmly raked across their bobbing Adam’s apple’s after being forced to recite a long retraction mumbled into a humming DV camera. The video would be on Youtube and T-shirts would go on sale saying “Death to the Infidels” (all with suitably gruesome pictures) and all of this would happen within an hour.

Now that is the kind of ruthlessly efficient marketing you need, Stevie: it grabs attentions; it makes headlines. Go and grab yourself an AK-47 and some semtex and blow the hell out of any pro-choice supporters, homosexuals, Muslims, Sikhs, Catholics, women, blasphemers, casinos and any other “Enemies of God” you can think of. That is what you are missing, my son; conviction and the balls to back it up. Everyone listens to radical Islam because they use violence. Everyone listens to American Christians because they use violence. Therefore, logically, violence is the only way to be heard these days; it’s the only way to get through to the people and to make the news.

It’s a scary thought, but the facts speak for themselves.

It’s not your fault, Stevie; so shed no tears. It’s not even radical Islam that has caused the problem; every news story has a lot to live up to in a post 9-11 world. Let's be honest here (it's all we have left), It's been like this forever but those particular images have upped the ante; they are some of the world’s most startling visions so how can anyone compete? Sadly, we live in a world where violence and mass murder are the only currency; the only thing anyone wants to watch. It's twisted and depressing but it is the way of things now. We are trapped by the saftey bars of this wild ride, there are holes all over the track and there is no hope of escape. All the explosions, suicide bombings and beheadings will always drown out the, to put it bluntly, pathetic protests of a religion that is dying here in the UK in the twenty-first century.

That’s it though, isn’t it Steve? You’re scared and cornered like an injured fox, the hounds slobbering and growling all around you, so you believe your only recourse is to lash out at anything you can. I understand. I’m here for you, remember? But, for now at least, your time is on the wane. Forget about it, Steve; either start crashing planes into buildings and add to misery in the world or get back to the builder’s site and spout your fascist rhetoric to people who are more likely to listen. When you’re there, though, and you see some blasphemy on your TV set, some affront to God or another religion getting better air-time than you, just remember:

Turn the other cheek.

Blasphemy… blasphe-you… Blasphe-everybody-in-the-room!

2007-11-20T17:11:00.000Z

Let’s forget about the fact that the Bible™ is essentially a mix of random fabrications, lies, distortions, half-truths and moral paradoxes that essentially show God to be a power-crazed lunatic with a penchant for mind-games on what can only be described as a GENOCIDAL scale, okay?

You’ll love this:

Below is a 'Christian Voice' pamphlet that Stephen Green (the leader of the aforementioned organization) was arrested for handing out at the Cardiff Mardi Gras 2nd September 2006. Read it CAREFULLY:

“So why is same-sex sex wrong?
So why same-sex love OK, but same-sex sex isn't? Two reasons. First, in our examples of same-sex love, it's within the family. Same-sex sex would be incest. You'll talk about 'our gay brothers' or 'our lesbian sisters' proving the point.”

(From www.christianvoice.org.uk/media/Same-Sex%20Sex.pdf)

Proof indeed.

I think it is now appropriate to establish my own stance on the sexuality question right here and now: Anyone should be able to have sex with anyone else so long as they are a consenting adult. Is that wrong?

For those of you not familiar with the Bible™ let me recap a little story for you. Come; sit on my wizened knee as I regale you with a tale that’ll turn your hair dumb:

Once upon a time, God got angry because a few people wanted to… well, bugger a couple of Angels staying with a lovely local family in Sodom. The father of the family that protected them - he was known as Lot - fended off the bummers, not with a sword or a chair, but by offering his daughters instead of the Angels. Obviously, that didn’t work since the roving band of sexual predators, were in fact, gay.

No, really; they much preferred a slice of ‘Angel-cake’.

So God said “Get out of town, She’s gonna blow!” (Or words to that effect) to the lovely daughter-sacrificing family and proceeded to blow the living shit out of Sodom and the neighbouring town of Gomorrah (and why not?). God did mention to the family previously not to look back but, because women are EVIL and DEGENERATE WHORES WHO TORE US AWAY FROM HEAVEN ITSELF, Lot’s wife did look and got turned into a pillar of salt for her troubles, just like Sarah Connor in the superb dream sequence of Terminator 2.

Now, here are a few quotations of what happened to Lot and his two remaining daughters in the lonely mountains where they sought shelter. Read it CAREFULLY:

“Genesis 19:

30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.

31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth.

32 Lets get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father."

33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father."

35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.”

(From The Bible™, Written by Anyone-Who-Fancied-It-At-The-Time)

Yeah, you guessed it. There is incest in the Bible™ and yes it is condoned. Why else would the all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present and benevolent God allow them to survive the blast? He knows everything, including what would happen up there in ‘Brokeback Mountain’. The wife was the only one to look at the blast; if God knows everything (and apparently He does) then why did he bother? Why did he say that if anyone looks back they will turn into a pillar of salt if he knew she would be the only one?

Ponder a moment. Let those Little grey cells fire up. There is only one answer...

He wanted her dead and he wanted Lot to shag his gangly, nymphet daughters in some savage drunken stupor because… (Drum roll)…

God likes to watch, folks. Remember, He was the one that created a race that went onto make two (very different) versions of “Animal Farm”.

God isn’t a DJ; he’s a mind-fuck.

Christ, this whole thing feels like the denouement from an Agatha Christie novel…

So, Stephen Green: if you believe incest is so wrong - even if your Bible™ suggests otherwise - then please feel free to send me an e-mail or comment justifying your dismal and wretched existence.

(For evidence of how monstrously and truly backwards this guy actually is check out the lovely photo at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Green_%28Christian_Voice%29)

Welcome to the Twenty-first Century, bub.

I'll see you in Hell.

Lyrics to "Noise = Death"

2007-11-20T15:28:00.000Z

The foot-falls say it all
He's drunk out of his mind.

She's looking for a fight,
She's getting all uptight.

Did you say that to your son
and forget it the next night?

It never goes away,
It's always on his mind.

I'll hold you up to light, I'll hold you up to light,
I'll hold you up to light and burn away all your lies,
now, what you gonna do? What you gonna do?
Skin all raw and sore - you're lying naked on the floor!

I had a Dream....

2007-11-19T20:02:00.000Z

Had a weird one last night... I’d been reading Fear & Loathing in America for at least four hours in bed. At some point it all stops sinking in and words just glide past without any kind of foothold, that’s when I turned off the light and put head to pillow...

...and that’s when the after image of the lamp began fucking with me.

In the dark, I couldn’t sleep; my eyes pinned open instinctively waiting for something to occur – perhaps something terrible. In the low light I saw what could only be described as a small white spider crawling wherever my eyes rested. It settled on my arm and the spider became black taking on a frightening solidity and realness. I knew it was only the light playing tricks – I knew it. But in the transformation the lines between optical illusions and a fucking great spider crawling up my arm became quite apparent. I touched my arm reflexively – Nothing.

So, I go to rest again but now the trick is worse. It was like I could see the fluid running across my eyes – a weird liquid fire, like heat-waves rising from a hot pavement. These waves came between me and whatever met my gaze. My tall, thin PC speakers that had lain dormant in the corner of the room for months began to dance together. My girlfriend’s discarded white shirt on the floor became a naked girl with half her head missing. Where the darkness met the light I saw hundreds of tiny insect legs reaching out. No longer scared I just rode the whole trip wondering whether I was actually hallucinating because of some long dormant LSD-25 crystals had met my imagination at closing time in my brain; or whether I had finally and inevitably ripped back the veil and flipped.
I finally fell asleep.

Dreams are kind of difficult to remember, all fragmented and illogical, although I often find it easier than most to recall them clearly and often find I can alter them in my sleep. I believe it is referred to, in many circles, as lucid dreaming. But this isn’t the point.

Bookended by darkness I’m in my living-room looking into a mirror. My reflection was bulkier and more muscular than I remembered and it was lit in some kind of dreadful noir-style. The slits of light from some invisible blind highlighting the reflection’s eyes and, particularly, the pulsating twin veins on my forehead that threaten to burst whenever I am angry or upside down. The not-so-obvious problem with my reflection was that it was NOT MOVING THE SAME AS ME. It wasn’t so much a mirror reflection as another room entirely. I moved out of it’s view, petrified out of my mind – fearing the uncanny and subtle differences in my reflection’s movements.

Tentatively, I took another look and found the reflection’s actions to be far braver. It was staring at me with a wild look in its eye – some crazed half-human man-beast beefed up to the eyeballs with steroids, adrenaline and some kind of awful machismo. The fucker wanted a fight and I was hopelessly outclassed. The man-beast reflection stepped out of the mirror-world and, at first, all I could do was stand rooted to the spot by sheer terror. It moved towards me slowly, deliberately and with terrible purpose muttering some gibberish double-speak that I couldn’t quite work out. Coming to my senses I reached for the table (that isn’t even there in the real-world) and found only dry-roasted peanuts. Not quite the weapon I was hoping for. There was no running, not in this kind of dream. If I had tried it would have been a run through a thick invisible molasses to a door that would never open. This was a stand and fight situation whichever way you cut it. To lose would mean waking up with a stifled scream and a gasp for air and a pervading sense of doom for the rest of the day. There was only one option.

I threw the peanut.

Perhaps it is dream logic; perhaps it’s my twisted sense of humour or justice; but that fucker collapsed on the floor screaming like a banshee. Obviously, being the tactically minded individual that I am, I took the opportunity not only to throw more peanuts but to stomp on that fucks head, over and over and over and over again.

After a while I looked down to see what kind of mess I had caused. But there was nothing. No mush, no brains, no segments of skull, no floor, no room; just an endless void and the silent blink of total unconsciousness.

Jobless in the Ivory Tower 2006

2007-11-19T20:00:00.001Z

Staccato car horns, the soft murmur of junkies and the constant threat of violent shaven caterpillars; these are the end days in the grime of Chatham, ladies and gentlemen. This place is full of morons and inbreds born of a failed dockyard; the drifting scum that are making it home and burning cars to light their way. I’m quietly watching through the slit of a window, my life is caught between my fingers; trying to beat the burning ash of the cigarette to the butt. Aimlessly, I am floating about the house wallowing in a meaty, half-cooked depression; chasing the fragment of a ghost of a chance across the fizzled electrics of the internet – my only meaningful contact with the outside world.

So... You know.

Life’s pretty damn peachy.

Have and Have Not

2007-11-19T19:57:00.001Z

The ingrates have spoken to me through my television. “Stop ranting!” they say, “Go outside and live a healthy and productive life! Go outside and waste it! FOR FUCK’S SAKE DO SOMETHING!!!” Yet, my body refuses. It recoils at the merest touch of cool fresh air; my eyes sear and burn when in contact with anything but the dullest natural light.

As you can probably tell, the giving up of cigarettes is going surprisingly well. I’m still waiting on the much promised energy boost. Have I missed my chance? Is that all life boils down to, the binary opposition of missing a chance or taking it? The chance to give up smoking, to not get cancer, to get the right job, the right girl or to stay at university – is that the sum of our lives? What we have got and what we missed?

How did I even get here? Where is my mind leading me tonight? I mean, these aren’t even thoughts; these are just reactions to a blank page. Am I guessing what should be here?

Does it even matter?

Best Famous Last Words?

2007-11-19T19:55:00.000Z

"They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—"

Killed in battle during the US Civil War.

General John Sedgwick, Union Commander, d. 1864

Letter to Amino:

2007-11-19T19:50:00.000Z

Thank Christ you got out of there when you did; last I heard was highly trained beavers were set loose on the ropes mooring Brighton to Blighty. We’ve all been waiting for the gentle kick-back as she floats to GOD KNOWS WHERE.

Or perhaps not. I’ve been quietly going insane in my little ivory tower – pacing the walls and such. Obviously, I have been reading far too much Thompson with blatant disregard for the recommended dosages; a brain as fragile as mine NEEDS recommended dosages at this my most vital stage.

Every night I am careening through the internet looking for a job; a simple media-related job. But there is nothing here friends and well wishers. This is a soulless, barren land. Perhaps if you look hard enough through the squint of your eyes you can see the graduate training schemes where a media job IS a sales job. I suppose they are right. The media, everyday, sells us hell and inadequacy. It sells us short – the dizziest of lows through a carefully blown marijuana fug.
Perusing the offers is like watching the initial stages of the birthing of some freakish lizard-pig; cracking through the translucent egg-shells, covered in some unspeakable, foul-smelling birth-goop:

“Amazing Graduate Opportunity – Corporate Sales London. This company offer an amazing opportunity for graduates who wish to pursue a career in corporate sales.
The leading graduate jobsite is looking for young, enthusiastic sales focused graduates with the drive to succeed and tons of energy.”

I can hear their mewling, it slides off the page. I’ve found them. It is here all the Hell on earth is brought forth; enticing those once innocent and open minds into their flock like some sallow, sweaty crossing-guard. Or perhaps the rot had set in a long time before. Who can rightly say? Perhaps we can nip this in the bud. Round up these sneaky lizard-pigs before the fuckers gestate, round them up with cattle prods and razor-wire and lead them into the blood-caked jaws of a monstrous mincing machine and have done with them.

Or burgers.

Whatever you fancy ‘cause it’s my treat.

Anyway, I’m rambling because I have fuck all to do but look for a job. Boo-hoo. Hope you and yours are well.

Cool people....

2007-11-19T19:48:00.000Z

I want to tie cool people down and poke their eyes with switchblades. Not poke them OUT (that is sick). Just poke them. See what happens. Pull off their fairy wings or devil horns, or whatever stupid item of clothing that screams “LOOK AT ME”, and see if they squirm, like flies on a slide. Put a bright light in the eyes of every twenty-four hour shade wearer and gauge their reaction - for scientific purposes, of course.

Bright light.

Most people hate things in others because they see that aspect in themselves. Not the little things but the big ones. You ever met a person who was so similar to you that you instantly despised them? Look at Holden Caulfield in Cather in the Rye – he hated phonies because, when it came down to it, he was a phoney.

I hate arrogant wankers.

You see my point?

I was defecating early one morning...

2007-11-19T15:52:00.000Z

The Triple-Print Kid (the benign Nazi-youth that adorns the little packets you find in magazines for all your old-school, photographic film) stared up at me from the dirty toilet floor as I pissed dejectedly (which is the only way to piss at 4 am). I noted he was on all the photos showing the triple-print quality & variations thereof. His teeth had gaps you could hide refugees in. In one picture he had his arms draped over two pre-pubescent girls (their faces sharing the expressions found on the faces of Russian sex slaves) like some child-pimp.

Clearly, he runs the company.

Toilet Graffiti #1

2007-11-19T15:51:00.000Z

I saw:

Mario y Lizi = Amoureterno.

and:

20 year old girl.
Fit. Sucks & Fucks.
Call 0800 WHATEVER.

Two scraps of graffiti I saw in an Italian airport scrawled in childish ideograms over a wan toilet door. The latter I find highly dubious since it was in the men’s. Call me cynical and I’ll call you a cocksucker; just don’t call that number.

Writing for Airports #1

2007-11-19T15:48:00.000Z

I’m in a queue for immigration; it’s six people wide and fills the entire length of the thirty-odd foot corridor. Whilst contemplating that, if any immigration officer decides to take me out back and check out my inner workings, I will sue them per inch rather than finger; I have the overwhelming feeling that when we turn the corner at the end there will be another corridor filled with a sea of shuffling, restless bodies. In fact, I imagine every corner I turn will bet the same – forever. Necessity will eventually take hold and I’ll have to bludgeon a fellow queue-pig with the rusty handle of a nearby trolley. I will have to share my battered bounty with those nearby for fear of mutiny. After several weeks of this (which would be just in time to celebrate the ‘Third Turning’) some of the other Line-jockey’s will have turned entirely feral; their clothes now ragged head-dresses and their old make-up used to create primitive war-paint.

This queue is similar to Hell.

I notice for the first time that, when boarding an aeroplane, the ‘No Sharps’ list includes: “No Baseball Bats or Mallets”. It is clearly a great comfort knowing that those in charge are, to quote Confucius: “All over it.” But, I will miss Ol’ Yella.

Many a head we smashed.

Meanwhile, the queue marches slowly onward. With a garbled cackle the speaker system kicked in spouting useless platitudes in a drudgingly banal voice:

“To allow smooth progress could all passengers have their passports to hand. Thank you.”

This repeats itself roughly every two minutes. The announcer (who probably died in the mid-seventies, alone, in some seedy hotel apartment remembering the heady bygone days of his rock-and-roll announcer life – the parties, the drugs, the unlawful bestiality accusations – swigging Glenfiddich and Neurofen before placing the starter pistol to the back of his throat and gingerly squeezing the trigger, the foam already spilling from his mouth and mixing with the burnt blood) has made THE LIST that I have especially for irritating cock-pulls like him. Although, on the plus side, it allowed me devise a small game you can play with your friends.

“To allow smooth progress could all passengers…”

Now, you pick a number. Try it yourself:

1. …eat their own flesh…
2. …Taste the bile boiling inside them…
3. …crack open the skull of the person in front like some rancid monkey-nut…
4. …see some end to this fucking queue…
5. …visualise yourself in a more karmically balanced state…
6. …lick my genitals…
7. …offer handy hints and recipes…
8. …clash in mortal combat…
9. …riot…
10. …fish…
11. …imagine playing volleyball with a recently emaciated head…

You get the idea folks.

Have a Nice Day!

2007-11-19T10:48:00.000Z

Every generation is frightened that it will be the one to face down the coming Apocalypse/Armageddon/Whatever like a weak-hearted businessman on a strip-club floor. But, these 'end-of-the-world' scenarios have been faced before – so many civilisations have risen and fallen (and that is the end of their world, folks) – but more powerful technology has created a much smaller world: A single nuclear/atomic/whatever bomb will reverberate through history - be it environmental (Chernobyl) or cultural (Hiroshima) damage - whilst a bunch of bombs will destroy history.

No people… no records… no history… because history is only for humanity and books; both of which burn easily.

A world that has pharmaceutical companies making as many cures as viruses is a world bent on it’s own self-destruction.

But all this won’t come until we are choked by our own cultural effluence. The constant recycling of ideas which are presented as fresh to each successive generation and moulded from plastics that will never degrade has become a junkyard cage around us. Music (in the charts at least), art, literature etc is regurgitated with more and more frightening frequency.

We are choking on our own sense of irony.

This is not a conducive atmosphere for new ideas. It’s more like we live (both figuratively and literally) in a state of perpetual anaesthesia (the ‘fluffy’ future). To paraphrase Bill Hicks: Here are 52 channels of ‘American Gladiators’; go back to bed.

Elsewhere, our living in a continuous somatic-fug creates fallout that everyone else is paying for. The Capitalist wet-dream is an attractive proposition to anyone who lives outside of the haze. For example:

You’re young, bored and stupid: In comes a well-dressed man offering you security and the prospect of cash – you take it.

You’re young, bored and starving: In comes a dangerous man offering you a gun and the prospect of cash - you take it.

You’re young, bored and angry: In comes a dangerous man offering you a bomb and the prospect of heaven - you take it.

I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Radiohead's New Album

2007-10-28T15:39:00.000Z

I'm a very cheap man.

There, I've said it.

I don't own anything on which to burn this new fangled album by Radiohead onto (it's called 'In Rainbows'... aw), so I have to carry it around on my phone. The only time I get to listen to it is when I'm walking to and from friend's houses, usually at the dead of night when the streets are populated by a bitter winter cold and lonely drunks swinging at invisible insects and muttering idly in tongues.

Ideal conditions for Radiohead, really.

So, here comes the beat: fast-paced, disintegrating and tinged with WARP (which, surely, is no bad thing). '15 Steps' and in comes the boy Yorke's falsetto and they play the ol' beat switcheroo. Here it comes... here comes the guitar, that big moment that every Radiohead fan hungers over like a grey-toothed pavlovian junky waiting for that knock on the door, his track marks weeping at the appearance of THE MAN. Hold your breath because here we g---- oh.

Did I take a left into 'Jazz-land?'

Hmmm.

There is a certain feeling of Squarepusher circa 'Feed Me Weird Things' with Boards of Canada's sampling of kids (that's not an accusation, by the way). Tasty and twisted - but is '15 Steps' Radiohead, even with the dirty breakdown at the end? It's another one of those artistic leaps they tend to make: From Pablo Honey (Gnarly punk) to The Bends (Anthemic rock) to OK Computer (Anthemic post-rock) to Kid A (WARP-ed beats) and... Well, then they kind of stalled drifting between guitar anthems and dirty Aphex-tious beats - add a little jazz, a pinch of dub and that's where we find them now.

'Body-snatchers' & 'Nude' are quick reminders of the Radiohead of yore. The former contains by far their dirtiest riff since 'National Anthem'; the latter is classic 'sing-a-long' Radiohead taken literally from the OK Computer sessions. Speaking of OK Computer the last of the songs that hark back to that period is 'All I Need' which is the clear antithesis of 'Climbing Up the Walls': Blissful, deep and a build-up that leaves you breathlessly wanting more. This is, however, not necessarily a good thing.

This trimming of the best parts happens again with the awesome 'Reckoner'. It holds in it's grasp a lovely Unkle-esque beat that is clearly reminiscent of 'Rabbit in Your Headlights' and has possibly the loveliest ending to any Radiohead song I've heard in a long time. Unfortunately, it ends far too prematurely. So much so that I have to listen to it over and over and over to get the fix those strings so lavishly offer and that the fade so cruelly snatches away. I can hear that little noise junky in my head scraping at the proverbial spoon for just one more hit; one more lick of the good stuff. I hope when they release the album proper they extend it or at the very least expand it when playing live. It's the worst kind of cruelty. Christ, I might even have to loop it myself. Then again, I might as well listen to 'Unfinished Sympathy' - that's the feeling it invokes.

It's a good feeling.

The album as a whole is what is scientifically known as a 'grower'. My initial feeling was mixed at best (and I am THE Radiohead fan) but, that's how I know an album is good. All my favourite albums have taken a while to adjust to - be it the alien worlds they invoke ('Kid A' or My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless'), esoteric musicality (Slint) - whatever. But it means that you will listen to it far more, become bored far slower (all albums have a life-span, folks), than the standard shapes and sounds thrown at you by other, lesser music.

Still, I haven't got to grips with the reggae/lover's rock tinge of 'House of Cards'. That one may take a while.

Ooo, ooo.

Before you go.

Do me a favour: the middle-eight of 'Body-Snatchers' (easy there, Mozart), when Mr Yorke sings: 'It is the 21st Century', is it me or does it sound alot like a Eric Cartmen singing karaoke?

No?

Maybe it's just me.

Look What You Made Me Do!

2007-10-28T15:07:00.000Z

It's your fault.

No, Really.