I like to stay on top of things when it comes to new music. Obviously finding new tunes is a big part of what I do here at Strong Odors, but besides that I just absolutely love discovering things I’ve never heard whether from my favorite artists or an obscure band nobody’s really heard of yet.

So I very rarely get surprised.

But surprises are one of the things that make Radiohead so awesome.

I returned home from Africa tired, jetlagged and a bit jaded only to find a new Radiohead album—The King of Limbs—had released while I was gone! It was like getting a gift from a loved one on a day you’d least expect.

Not a Christmas gift or birthday present or a valentine’s card… but like that day you came home to find flowers on the desk just for no reason at all. Just because.

(and you know how much I love flowers)

I’ve got another post for another day on how Radiohead helped me endure some of my most difficult days in Africa. How they’ve helped me redefine worship when it is something we become so desperate to put into a box.

But for now I’m just enjoying the music.

If you have headphones, you’re gonna want to use those for this record. Even cheap earbuds like the ones I use will make all the details that get lost in the air that lies between your ears and a speaker come to life. Of course you can enjoy it on your car stereo or laptop speakers or whatever… but it’s a bit like watching a 3D movie without the glasses.

I was honestly in quite a trance for that first full week back in the States. It took every ounce of discipline and courage that I had to sit back down at my desk after being on all different types of adventures for the half-month previous.

So to get up early in the morning and plug in to the balm of one of the defining sounds of my existence was like using new drugs to cope with withdrawal (except in a good way of course).

It’s been extremely difficult trying to re-acclimate myself to life-as-usual. Even though it was a mere two weeks in Africa it was two weeks that have stuck in my soul like shrapnel. As much as I try to pick out the pieces and set them in a scrapbook there’s always that bit wedged so closely up against my aorta that any attempt to remove it would be fatal.

So there it stays where only the barometer can agitate pain wonderful enough to remind me of all that I saw and felt and smelled while I was there.

Fantastically enough, the closing song on this album comes about as close as I could ever hope to describing my condition as I try to make sense of life back home and the fading lucid dream that haunts me and propels me forward all at the same time:

Separator

It’s like I’m falling out of bed
From a long, weary dream
The sweetest flowers and fruits hang from trees
Falling off the giant bird that’s been carrying me

It’s like I’m falling out of bed
From a long and weary dream
Just exactly as I remember
Every root
Every gesture

I’m a heart in cold ground
Like I’m falling out of bed
From a long and weary dream
Finally I’m free of all the weight I’ve been carrying

Every woman blows her cover
In the eye of the beholder
I’m a fish now out of water
Falling off a giant bird that’s been carrying me

I fell open
I laid under
At the tap out
I was just a number
I wanna slip it over
And get back under
And if you think this is over
Then you’re wrong

The sweetest flowers and fruits hang from trees

When I ask you again

Wake me up
Wake me up
Wake me up