Featured Artist(s): All of us/None of us

All of us/None of us are an indie rock band from the American west coast (L.A. and San Francisco) that promises to live up to its name* of musical commitment with genuine rock spirit flecked with blues and alternative motifs.

With an already critically acclaimed debut LP, Lucky Robot, under their belts, the band recently published its second EP, Arcane and Abel (also available on iTunes).

Check out All of us/None of us on MySpace and their official site for more streamable tracks and updates.

All of us/None of us - Watcha Gonna Do? {MP3} (from Arcane and Abel)
All of us/None of us - Excess {MP3} (from Arcane and Abel)

* The band's name also strikes a chord with certain moral dilemmas being debated all around the world, specifically the individual-society/state relationships and how one is bound and responsible for the other. I won't get into it in great detail right now; suffice it to say it has life and death repercussions as well as personal ones. Interestingly, it's also the name of an organization that deals with prisoners and former prisoners' rights, probably inspired by a quote from a Bertold Brecht poem: "Comrade, only slaves can free you. Everything or nothing. All of us or none".

Song of the Morning: Radiohead as guides to the afterworld

This post is going to be a little weirder than usual (already quite an achievement) as it involves Radiohead acting as sort of guides to the world beyond. I'm talking about a dream, of course, though given some of their work on Kid A and Amnesiac, it may not be completely without basis.

It started with Radiohead performing live on stage, but they were also constantly changing, shifting from their 90's look to the current one (and vice versa), complete with hair do and song repertoire. In fact, they seemed to have played very old On a Firday songs I'm not even familiar with (yet I somehow identified them as such).

Finally, the show was somehow interrupted by a street scene of a veritable parade of what looked like people dressed in very obvious animal costumes (such as sharks with legs). These, Thom Yorke explained, were some of the dead being in transition from this world to the next. I don't know who's idea was it to put these people in Halloween-styled apparel, but it somehow felt natural at the time (dream time, that is). Sadly (or perhaps fortunately) I don't remember how it ended, though I'm sure there were additional explanations by the seemingly knowledgeable band. The harder I try to remember the more the details just seem to blur and fade away.

I awoke in silence. At first I thought there would be no Song of the morning, but then I heard it: excerpts from two songs, one after the other, very quietly. The first was the chorus of Yehudit Ravitz's song "Angel Face" (in Hebrew), which is a beautiful love song (a woman welcoming her beloved in a rainy city) but also a sad sounding song, sometimes associated with the death and loss of youths, mostly in war. The second was a line from Sea Wolf's "You're a Wolf": "The one that you are looking for, you’re not gonna find her here, here".

So, what to make of it? I can think of worse things than being accompanied to the next world by the members of Radiohead, but as an agnostic I'm not sure I actually believe in the existence of an afterworld, so that may turn the subject moot. Is my deranged sub-conscious trying to say something? Or are dreams simply the day's thoughts and feelings being regurgitated with some unusual after taste and side effects? I don't know; they sure keep life weird though, huh?

Yehudit Ravitz - Angel Face (Hebrew) {MP3} (from Come to Rio), hosted for a limited time only.
Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf (from Leaves in the River)