Record Store Day is tomorrow and as expected, some of our top artists are releasing special edition vinly for the occasion. Take Radiohead–no stranger to the whole vinyl thing–and their dual 7 inch dropping tomorrow. Supercollider and The Butcher were found on the cutting room floor from their King of Limbs album, however the the both songs (especially The Butcher) are a necessity for any Radiohead fans collection.

Unfortunately, the US of A gets no love on this release. The special 7 inch will only be avilable for the UK, Europe, and Japan. So email your friend in London now and tell him to line up at his local high street record shop. You know I will. (via Hypetrak)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Radiohead – Reckoner

I can easily say that this is probably one of my best discoveries and to this day an all-time favorite song. ‘Reckoner’ was released as the third single off of Radioheads infamous ‘In Rainbows’ album (2007), which in case you don’t know or have forgotten, was initially released as a digital download with the awesome asking price of  ‘pay-what-you-want’ –  if-anything-at-all’ until its retail release. Sounds like nothing now since in 2009  it became somewhat of a distribution staple from both major and indie artist in to release an album or mix ‘tape’ for free . But ‘back-then’ for a group as massive as Radiohead to take such a bold step was quite unprecedented. Coincidentally it turned out to be one of their most critically acclaimed albums, which sadly I was about a year plus late on.

ANYWAY, Reckoner is insistent and almost dominant with superb instrumentals; beautiful string arrangements, guitar riffs and percussions. This, coupled with Thom Yorke’s warm falsetto vocals results in an insanely beautiful piece of music. Although the words can initially come off slightly incoherent, the melody however can be unbelievably hypnotizing.

Reckoner in my opinion is kind of non-genre’d (yes I think that’s a made up word)-  it’s just a great song that  makes you feel good. It can spark introspection and appreciation for life’s art – which can be an good thing, especially at the end of the year.

Another cool fact is that Radiohead also released Reckoner in “stem” formats; meaning individual parts of the song (vocals, guitar and piano) were available for fans to remix  through the Radiohead website: Pure genius/awesomeness.

I just can’t find fault in a band that has esteem notoriety, true understanding of the new digital music evolution (that fans are immersed in) all while making solid music. Enjoy.

And yes, I will interview Thom Yorke before I die, believe me on this. (video via I Heard It On)

MF Doom – Gazzillion Ear (Thom Yorke Remix)

Even with the MF Doom fuckery that has been going around lately, I still cosign the dude as one of my favorite rappers of all time. (Yeah, I said it!) And most of y’all know that Thom Yorke and Radiohead is one of my favorite bands of all time. So yeah, I’ve been waiting for this track like a teenage girl at an Omarion concert.

Let’s face it. Hip-hoppers love them some Thom Yorke, and I see why. Thom flips Gazzillion Ear and drops a ghostly beat that feels like it came off his solo album The Eraser or even Radiohead’s Kid A. The combination comes off perfectly.

Doom’s album Born Like This (which from the previews alone look like the best hip-hop album this year) is in stores now. His impostors will be performing in your town soon.

This year, instead of just having me yap on about my Best of lists, I reached out to several of our readers to give their Top 5 of the best releases of the year. I’ll be profiling a new reader each day until the end of the 2008. Today’s reader is Julian, who is one half of the DC-based duo Bullets over Romance.

Name: Julian
Location: Washington, DC

Album (No particular order)
Q-Tip – The Renaissance
The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale
The Knux – Remind Me in 3 Days
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah
Radiohead – In Rainbows

(Honorable mention) Guilty Simpson – Ode to The Ghetto

Song
The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die
Erykah Badu – The Healer
Mayer Hawthorne – Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out
Q-Tip – Gettin’ Up
MGMT – Electric Feel

The mix below is NOT MY RECKONER REMIX, unless you think that my name is Diplo. I do think this is one of the best ones that I’ve heard so far and needs to be voted up, though.

If you want to get your own mix started, check the site here.

Radiohead has again raised the bar for they way videos are made. Their video for House of Cards uses no cameras at all. It was made entirely with a 3D laser scanning system.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Watch the making of video at Google.

Best video of 2008? Might be.

(props: Christie)