No More 'No More Running': Animal Collective design shoes

As the Guardian reports, Animal Collective will be giving away their next album as a cassette with a pair of "otherwise plain canvas shoes" costing $75 (£45).

Apparently all profits will be going to some kind of eco-charity project, but wouldn't the most environmentally conscious move be to release the album digitally and donate all profits to the Socorro Island Conservation Fund? I suppose they're hoping that releasing music in such a physical (and expensive) way might limit online sharing, but really it punishes hardcore fans who will pay any price for a collector's item while rewarding fair-weather listeners and illegal downloaders who'll just BitTorrent it anyway once the audiophiles have done their worst on the cassette-to-MP3 conversion.

And just to keep things interesting (and pricey), the first pair will be designed by Avey Tare. Yep, in total you can expect Geologist, Panda Bear and Deakin to all put their stamps on "otherwise plain" sneakers in the next few months at a similar price. And of course there'll be kids out there who fork out £188 for the pleasure of owning four pairs of fake-Cons/Vans, four cassettes and a tape player off eBay.

I understand that bands are finding it increasingly difficult to make money from record sales and I totally sympathise, because there's nothing that kills creativity more than keeping musicians on the road for two years solid to pay off their advance. But I don't think gimmicky, over-priced collector's items and limited editions are the answer.

Radiohead's Colin Greenwood recently reflected on this conundrum for the Index on Censorship. Excitement! Radiohead have apparently finished a new group of songs. But it sounds like they'll be coming up with another approach to releasing this album following the pay-what-you-like system they pioneered for In Rainbows three years ago.

Colin himself says: "I buy hardly any CDs now and get my music from many different sources: Spotify, iTunes, blog playlists, podcasts, online streaming - reviewing this makes me realise that my appetite for music now is just as strong as when I was 13, and how dependent I am upon digital delivery."

This pretty neatly sums up the best and worst of the dramatic shift to digital in the land of music consumption. Pro: Music from many different sources means a wider variety of music can be exposed and shared; younger music fans particularly tend to be less preoccupied with genre and more open to new sounds. Pro: Music from many different sources means MORE MUSIC. Yay! Like Colin, I reckon my appetite for music is just as strong as when I was 13. My access to music isn't mediated by a weekly magazine or what my friends listen to (my GOD, that'd be dire) but is a constant stream of suggestions and blips and scrobbles and tweets and interaction that brings me right into the industry, amazingly.

But. The con: "I buy hardly any CDs now." Alright, I know Colin is getting some of his music from iTunes or 7Digital or Bandcamp, but he is also streaming. And so am I, and so are you. Spotify, Myspace, Last.fm, Soundcloud, podcasts... all free, and that's why my appetite is just as voracious as when I was 13. It would be incredible to relive my teenage years with the kind of overwhelming access to music I now have (although perhaps not desirable. So much pressure!), but with everything free and streaming just a few clicks away, where does that leave the artist? On bloody tour, again, that's where.

And not everyone likes Ginster's Steak Slices. Especially not Animal Collective, I reckon.

To be continued...

Radiohead, In Rainbows

Radiohead, In Rainbows
Internet only release/XL

Radiohead have now released their seventh studio album. The entire promotional tour for its release consisted of a three line blog post from Johnny Greenwood. The record, In Rainbows, was released as a download only on 10^th October (with a boxset to come later in the year), for which there was no fixed price. “It’s up to you”, they said – pay what you want. They are so far refusing to release details of its sales figures to the official chart compilers, thus making it ineligible for the number one position that it no doubt has achieved a hundred times over already.

The fact that Radiohead have chosen to ignore all accepted conventions of releasing a record, cutting out everything from the distribution to the deal itself, may well have a lasting impact on how we buy and sell music from this moment on. But that’s something for the record company moneypinchers and PR layabouts to worry over. Frankly, the public don’t give a toss about any of that. Why? Because it’s the new Radiohead album! Just play it!

Four years after Hail To The Thief, an album named in honour of President Dubya, and the world seems much the same. We’re still bogged down in Iraq, that President is still the President, and the planet continues to hurtle towards the button marked self-destruct with barely a peep from the people who could stop it. But where Hail To The Thief was an angry polemic railing against heavy-handed authority and corrupt politics, In Rainbows is – well, it’s called In Rainbows for a start. Without artwork you’re left with just those two words as a guide to the meaning of this record, two words that turn out to be more than enough once you’re plunged into an album that is genuinely bursting with colour, leading your mind into endless sublime dreamscapes, as all Radiohead albums do.

The unmistakeable highlight on first listen is ‘Nude’, a song that’s been knocking around for ages and now finally done full justice in this mind-bogglingly beautiful track which picks up where Kid A’s ‘How To Disappear Completely’ left off, using its familiar layered, reversed and looped parts. This is the kind of subtle magnificence that other two-bit indie bands dream about; it wrenches your insides and forces you to close your eyes for Thom’s perfect vocal take and guitars so warm they melt and disintegrate into a cosy blanket of fuzz. Its twin pillar is ‘Bodysnatchers’, the obvious ‘first single’ if that had been a possibility with In Rainbows. Like ‘Electioneering’ in a post-victory honeymoon, it races along with an almost dancefloor-ready urgency as zillions of fantastic crunchy noises and springy guitars pop in your ears. This is why earphones are required equipment for any self-respecting Radio-head.

What really sets this apart from their other albums becomes apparent on tracks like ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ - where before the band would have used drum machines and unrecognisably altered guitar samples, they’ve eschewed sparse, cold beats for real guitars with incredibly rich, warm tones and expansive orchestral sections. Johnny Greenwood’s recent dabble in classical music is obvious, particularly on ‘All I Need’ which climaxes in a dramatic orchestral pile-up that’s so loud and so uplifting that even its morbid lyric, “I’m an animal trapped in your hot car,” can’t taint its optimism.

There could never be enough space to describe every genius touch on this faultless record, but that can only be a good thing. Radiohead make albums to keep, albums to come back to and albums to befriend. Acquaint yourself with In Rainbows personally, and find your own version inside. A perfect album from a truly peerless band.