Monday July 10, 2006 arts.michigandaily.com artspage@michigandaily.com ARTS 9 Radiohead frontman a finds sound on 'Eraser' By Chris Gaerig Associate Arts Editor The end of Kid A says it all. Thom Yorke, lead singer and mastermind of the enigmatic Radiohead, sits behind the throbbing heartbeat of a Thom Yorke pump organ and angelic cries of harps as he moans The Eraser his way through the mun- XL Recordings dane yet strangely opti- mistic "Motion Picture Soundtrack." His solitude is heart-wrench- ing and his voice warm and comforting as he croons, "I think you're crazy, maybe." Kid A was already a departure for the group. Often touted as the next Beatles - or at least the future of Brit pop after the decline and essen- 6c Motion Pi tial death of fellow British powerhouse Oasis - the Soundtrac group's decision to rely on electronic drones, synthe- Just convir sized instrumentation and drum machines raised more was truth: than a few eyebrows across the music spectrum. So was Thom when the album ends with at the mos Yorke hunched over a pump organ nearly swallowing the point in h mic in front of his face, fans and critics alike understood that this was a new side to the baby-faced guitar rockers. But when the group returned on their next album, Hail to the Thief, back to their old ways of screaming melodies and straightforward (at least as straightforward as Radiohead can get) rock, some were left scratching their heads, because "Motion Picture Soundtrack" wasn't just convincing, it was truth: That was Thom Yorke at the most open point in his career. That's where Thom Yorke belonged. And he's finally returned there on his first solo release The Eraser, a sprawling electro-pop record simultaneously reminis- cent of Kid A and full of its own life and heady tracks. On first listen, though, The Eraser isn't any of the above. It simply sounds like an album full of Radiohead B-sides and rarities. Why did Yorke wait so long to release this album? It's a Radiohead disk performed by Yorke rather than the rest of the band. And at that point, that's exactly what it appears to be. But keep listening and you'll discover that not only is The Eraser a production of Yorke's genius alone, but also that icture it's drastically different from anything Radiohead k" wasn't has ever done. "Black Swan," the ncing, it album's first single - and ironically one of the tracks That showing a great likeness Yrke to Radiohead work - is a Y lorke mass of popping electronic st open snares and staccato guitars. But it's Yorke's lyrics that is career. prove how far he's ventured from Radiohead: "What will grow crooked / You can't make straight" and the chorus "This is fucked up, fucked up." He later cries "You've tried your best to please everyone / But it just isn't happening." Yorke seems oddly disillu- sioned with his previous work and plans to set things the way they should be (or at least how 1' 1 C. .r n s !1 When Yorke isn't playing the melodramatic lead singer, he's getting chicks with those shades. he should be) on The Eraser. And things only continue to venture further from Radiohead. "The Clock" loops every- thing from people mouthing drum beats to a low-fi, scratchy guitar. Yorke even hums his way through the chorus, ignoring words in exchange for a simple melody. Even "Horrow- down Hill" - the first notes of which are an identifiable guitar riff, something that is gen- erally absent on The Eraser - quickly degen- erates into a swarm of drum machines and a melancholy string arrangement. Finally, following in Yorke tradition, The Eraser ends on quite an odd note, possibly signifying work to come. The synthesized bass line and mystifying computer blips of "Cymbal Rush" would be welcome on any Autechre album while Yorke moans nearly incomprehensible lyrics. But as on "Motion Picture Soundtrack," it seems that this is exactly where he needs and wants to be. First, he was hunched over a mic with a guitar. Then, an organ. Now, he's over a lap- top. Who knows what's next? What we can be sure of though is that Yorke will never stop reinventing himself until he's exactly where he should be. CSS proves sex can't sell terrible music By Lloyd Cargo Daily Arts Writer CSS hails from Sao Paulo, Brazil - where the city's official motto is "I am not led, I lead." The same cannot be said for CSS. Mega-indie Subpop's first South American signing sounds like a third-rate Peaches, but Cansel de Ser without any sort Sexy of agenda or Subpop sense of humor. Cansei De Ser Sexy translates to "Tired of being sexy." Probably (hopefully) that is meant to be ironic, but after a spin through the album, it's hard to see how anyone could confuse their tired electro-rock as any- thing approximating sexiness. And while lead-singer Lovefoxxx does say "fuck" a bunch, she comes off like a 12-year-old trying to impress her friends. If dumb lyrics get you hard, you should definitely file CSS in your CD collection right next to your Electric Six and Le Tigre albums. For a band that comes from a city as large, diverse and culturally progres- sive as Sao Paulo (the city is the larg- est in the Southern Hemisphere, almost twice the size of New York City), CSS is shockingly narrow-minded. The lyr- ics are especially inane - if they really can't do better than "I'm an artist / I'm an art bitch / I sell my paintings to the men I eat" for the chorus to "Art Bitch," then maybe they ought to stick to Por- tugese. Even for electro-rock, a genre that's pretty ridiculous by nature, those lyrics are particularly horrendous. No one is expecting Thom Yorke-level soliloquies, but "CSS Suxx" for the entirety of a song, coincidentally titled "CSS Suxx," is painful. Peaches can get away with a simi- lar schtick because her gender-chal- lenging lyrics and political rants lack obvious posturing and posses a certain level of tongue-in-cheek humor. Maybe CSS was going for that with songs like "Meeting Paris Hilton," but not a single word on the album approaches the intel- ligence of Peaches's album title, Impeach My Bush (coincidentally both albums are released on the same day, July 11). Subpop throws a quote on the back of the promo CD that says "Not only music, but a new way to live with it. An unfinished group that, unlike preserving itself until getting 'to the point,' was bravely showing off, turning everything into style." Getting to the point? What point? What the hell was Subpop, one of the most respected indie labels, thinking when they gave this a greenlight? It's a big, overly stylized turd of a record that reeks of perverse internationalism. Maybe the joke was lost in transla- tion, but one listen will leave you tired of CSS. CSS's music would be sexy if they weren't all so ugly.