The New Noise - November
by Michael Hukin

Essential new(ish) releases reviewed and reviled.

Radiohead - Kid A (Capitol)

What's going on out there? Everywhere I go people are pissing all over Kid A like it's the worst record ever made. The abysmal Rolling Stone magazine runs an absolutely unhilarious A-Z of why Kid A sucks shit. You, the music fans, you're making dolls of Thom Yorke and sticking pins into his eyes. You're burning your W.A.S.T.E. wear in cathartic bonfires. You're slamming The Head to everyone you meet and rejecting any and all affiliation to the World's Greatest Living Band. And just because they dared to be....different.

I understand your pain.

You wanted Thom to spazz out some more and go into angery-pissed-off mode screaming lines like "You don't remember!!" or "You do it to yourself!!" and thus make it easy for you to jump around your room and think "Thom Yorke knows me! Goddam, this is MY OWN PERSONAL angry-pissed-off song of salvation! Take that, ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/boss! Ha Ha!"

I understand your pain, but I pity you for feeling it.

Kid A is the same Radiohead world of emotion and empathy that you adored on The Bends and OK Computer except this time the Boys From Oxford have dressed it up in a different outfit. And the sad thing is, even if they had kept the formula you NOW say you crave more than air and given you 'Bendy Computer Mk 3' you'd still be unzipping and unleashing all over the record. Kid A is a beautiful, solitary moment in time captured and distilled into one of this year's most daring ventures into sound. The one thing I think I can pluck out of the diamond-mine and throw away as coal is the Morphine-esque saxophone blast near the start of the album. But shame on me, by the end of that particular song Radiohead have even managed to incorporate the uncoolest of uncool into the mix so that it actually begins to emote and take form amongst the wreckage. If you really believe Kid A is a landslide of shit in a career of snow-capped vistas, know that you have not outgrown Radiohead, but they have outgrown you. Go listen to Coldplay.

Shellac - 1000 Hurts (Touch And Go)

From the utterly sublime to the perfectly mean. Shellac have promised much for many years, and with '1000 Hurts' they've perfected their auto-tracking hate targeting system into one of this year's most brutally cool albums. You know Steve Albini understands guitars and the effects they can have when used outright as weapons, from the Big Black days to his production work with Nirvana and The Wedding Present amongst many others, and now Albini's Shellac are one of the harshest, cleanest guitar bands in the world. All the way from 'Prayer To God' (with it's evil preacherman refrian of 'Fucking kill him, just fuckin' kill him') to 'Watch Song' Shellac will absofuckinglutely stun you with this intense body of work. Remember on Big Black's 'Songs About Fucking' where Albini stopped a number halfway to spit "I think I fucked your girlfriend once" before jumping back into the tool shop? This is the same level of evil intent, only cleaner, leaner and a thousand times more hurtful. Go get this now, you fucking piece of shit.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! - Raise Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (Kranky)

Canadian Violence is go with the ever-expanding all-consuming Godspeed army back at the studio unleashing their apocalyptic visions unto the mortal world one more time. Depending on your tastes, GYBE will either spill your head all over the carpet or bore you to tears and hitting the eject within four minutes. Me, my head is spilt and will be many many more times. Godspeed are playing The Crocodile in Seattle any day now and you should really really be there if space/distance/dissonance is your thing. To give you a quick intro to the world of Godspeed, try to imagine music as weather, moving through cycles from pitter-patter drizzles on your window to full-blown Hammer Of Thor thunderstorms and city razing earthquakes in the flick of a wrist. Be warned, this is a double CD of natural disasters.

Madonna - Music (WEA)

I know she's currently shagging that 'Lock Stock/Snatch' guy from London, but honestly, there's no excuse for the horribly affected Sloan accent Madonna is currently employing in her interviews. Somebody smack her and sack her dialect coach.

As for the music on, er, 'Music,' the High Priestess Of Pop is going through the motions which, to us, mere mortals, means the usual ace journeys into throwaway delectability in under four minutes. Madonna is the exact opposite of Godspeed You Black Emperor which, obviously, means she is just as cool as they are only in a completely different universe. I can never be upset with the woman who gave the world 'Ray Of Light' and that oops! song. Except for her horrible speech affectations, naturally.

Oi! Madonna! You're geezer! (For a bird)

The Posies - At Least At Last (Not Lame)

Ahh, The Posies, the Northwest's very own poor, poor, living-in-a-box man's Crowded House. Believe it or not, kids, this is a 4-cd boxed set, which means that you get one song for every Posies final show ever ever ever we really mean it this time that has ever been played at The Crocodile. 'The Posies 264 - Return To The Cash.' As you probably know by now, I rate the Posies right down there in my 'Music Related Reasons To Blow Up Seattle' list with Superdeluxe, The Cinematics, Stranger gossip columns, Seattle Weekly music columns, The Breakroom, the one-legged stinky man with the recorder who hangs out near 15th Ave QFC, solo acoustic singer/songwriters, the whole Gordon Biersch crap-pile of solo acoustic singer/songwriters, super-ego pretentious art-rock bands with no grip on reality, The Presidents, the death of The Rocket, the inability of most Seattle residents to have fun at a live show, Jesus Christ somebody FUCKING STOP me. We're right back to Shellac again - "someone fucking kill them." You could say that all of these things, including The Posies, are some of the reasons I started a record label. Bring on the New Noise, you bad motorscooters.

Michael Hukin, November 2000

The New Noise is always reviewing new releases, whether they're a major label million-dollar marketed CD or a self-released bedroom-made demo. To get your music included, email pandomag@rocketmail.com and request the New Noise mailing address.

Email Michael Hukin

Also at Pandomag.com:

Lost Empires, Found Memories:
Joel R. L. Phelps and the Downer Trio release a gripping new album, by Dave Liljengren

Ian Hunter is Rock and Roll to the Bone
Gail Worley interviews the storied Brit who made Cleveland rock

Notes from Underworld
"Any band that can capture their show on tape isn't a very good live band," says Norm Elrod in this CD review

Rock and Roll is Not About Jennifer Lopez and Her Ass. Or Is It?
Charles Redell reviews Iron Maiden live in Seattle

Almost Lester Bangs:
Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous & The Birth of Uncool, by Claude Iosso

Hyping Da Punx
PUNK AGITATORS AT THE DRIVE IN RELEASE THE MOST INTENSE ROCK RECORD OF THE YEAR, by Nicolas Cifuentes

Eminem: Don’t Believe the Hype
Eminem’s new album proves that his relevance goes way beyond being a thorn in the side of propriety, by Kimberly Reyes

Return to Forever: The Greatest Hits of Your Life
"Music -- and smell memory -- are unequalled for their awesome power of full transportation to the past. I mean, hearing Jimi Hendrix ask "Are You Experienced?" takes me back to that first acid trip every time," says Gail Worley in The Worley Gig