The Eraser

Thom Yorke form Radiohead has a new solo album out on the 10th of July. From the first track "Black Swans" I've heard, it sounds as if it will be rather good. Full of angst, self loathing, doubt and other such dark themes of nihilism that us Generation-X'ers sometimes get off on.....or perhaps humanity does?

The headboard in the small stage above has a couple of Black Dogs or are they rats?

There's a couple of clips XL records with some creepy music which no doubt will be the tone of the album. Artwork is done by Radiohead 's usual art director Stanley Donwood, the series is called London Views which is he describes as:

London Views is a picture of London, an apocalyptic panorama that stretches from the Thames estuary upstream to beyond the familiar structures of the gherkin, the NatWest tower, Big Ben and Battersea Power Station.
This medievalised vision of apocalypse in England's capital city was carved on 14 pieces of linoleum with one small cutting tool. The original blocks make up a picture about twelve feet long, which has been painstakingly hand-burnished on to beautiful Japanese Kozo paper, as it has so far proved impossible to print this using a press. Thus the edition is extremely small; only 8 have been made.

At XL records they've made some small clips using the London Views series, the music could be descibed as "wistful".

First one has the black dogs/rats on planks of wood, some floating along until they reach the man in black above and one sinking into the void.

Second one has the Tower of London, the Gherkin and a skyscraper shooting sprouts heading heavenward again stopped by the man in black.

Third one has the UK Parliament House shooting sprouts heavenward as a boat sails past.

Fourth one has several London buildings including the Tate Modern, the Milenium Dome, St Paul's etc floating along.

Black Swans has been played on Triple J from time to time, I managed to get a copy of it and have been playing it regularly in at home and in my car via a mp3 player and fm transmitter setup. It's not the most uplifting of songs, but Radiohead were never known much for any sort of message of hope. Which in a way, appeals to my sense of black reality at the moment and always did.

Waiter! Gimme a Prozac.....no....hang on....make it a double.