According to Daily Record, Desecration Smile is the single of the week.

ONE of the highlights of Stadium Arcadium, this, despite the title, is a bright, almost hippyish ballad in the style of Under The Bridge. Fresh from winning four Grammys, including Best Rock album, it again proves that they and fellow Eighties survivors U2 are the foundations of modern rock. This song stands out because of singer Anthony Kiedis’s high vocals in the early verses but as ever becomes epic with the guitar playing of John Frusciante.

Now, how to get the single?

Part one, featuring Joe as bonus track.
Part two, featuring Funky Monks (live) and Save This Lady as bonus tracks

This is the cover of AW II, which is also the confirmed title for the second Ataxia album, according to the German official site.

Don’t forget, you can pre-order the album here

(edited: this is the correct image. I accidentally put the cover of something else up because I was tired!)

As the new RHCP single for the market outside of USA and Canada is out on 12th February and the song is breathtakingly beautiful (better live than on the album, though;)), I thought I’d post this beautiful review from Digital Spy, by Miriam Zendle.

What a cheerful name for a song! The new single from the Chili Peppers combines melancholy verse with slightly more bouncy, sped-up harmonies and ponderings, before the verse heralds a return to the sharp twanging guitars and lead singer Anthony Kiedis and co’s decision to put the vocals slightly too high to allow for strength or not.

‘Desecration Smile’ has a great strength in John Frusciante’s ever wonderful musicianship, but Anthony Kiedis’ vocal grates the minute you hear it on this track - it’s pitched higher than his normal vocal, and it simply doesn’t work that well.

There’s a great guitar solo as the end approaches, and whilst the instrumental is fabulous, the song isn’t quite perfect - it could do with some work. It’s still a good Chili Peppers song, but it lacks something, and it certainly sounds a bit more Boney M than Bon…meh, the metaphor isn’t coming, but you know what I mean.

You can read the review on its original page, right here.

Ataxia II is apparently available for preorder on Amazon already. Click here to preorder your copy:)

John’s official site has been updated for the first time in…well, a year or so and this is what’s on the top of its news page at the moment. I recommend you to go there to read it; but, well, I posted it here, too:

ATAXIA was a band for about two weeks in February 2004. Its members are Joe Lally of Fugazi, Josh Klinghoffer and John Frusciante. The word ‘Ataxia’ is Greek for ‘disorder’. We were unaware at the time that it also has a meaning in English which is: total or partial inability to coordinate voluntary bodily movements, as in walking. In keeping with our names’ Greek meaning (quite unintentionally), the sections of our songs never had an arranged order. All our songs’ foundations are the bass which always plays one part throughout. The drums and guitar move about and generally use the vocal as their guide. The vocals and words were written, but the order the vocal sections occurred in, and how long the spaces between were, was different every time. So we would all stay on our toes to stay together for dynamics, changes in groove, switches to new sections, etc. We played two shows and recorded two records. The first record was released in August 2004. It was named after the surrealist activity called Automatic Writing. That was where people like Andre Breton and Max Ernst would write words in the form of sentences and paragraphs, but with absolutely no conscious attempt at meaning. They would observe the structure of their subconscious and its peculiar methods of organization (or the lack thereof) this way. And if there is one sure answer I can give to the question, “How did you write and record two albums in a week and a half?”, it is that we gave absolutely no thought to what we were doing, whatsoever. This music is unblemished by any expectations of a specific result, on our part. The three of us simply got together to hear what music had to say that week. We had fun together and this is the record of that fun.
- John Frusciante

So, I guess we’re all due for a wonderful treat. And for us who were actually born early in March, it’s like a birthday present

This was out while the site was down, so I thought I’d give you a heads up anyway. The new RHCP single, Snow (Hey Oh) is available for purchase.

Here’s a link to part 1, featuring an awesome instrumental Permutation (yes, you guessed, it’s one of those amazing Californication intros) as the bonus track:
click here.
Here’s a link to part 2, with the bonus tracks I’ll Be Your Domino (a very funky Mother’s Milk-style song) and Funny Face (a surprising raggae-style song with a very cool guitar solo at the end):
click here

Here’s a bit of the review from Ultimate Guitar:

One of the album’s catchiest tracks,” touted Billboard, “‘Snow’ is a bittersweet pop tune driven by a seductively serpentine melody, which curls and coils like a snake under the influence. Here Anthony Kiedis gives one of his best vocal performances to date, offering a relaxed, Zen-like look inside his lifelong struggle with addiction while delivering delicate pop hooks.”

“Snow” was sent to radio last week, supported by a live video filmed at concerts at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ on Oct. 17 and 18. The video, featuring the band’s extended community, also offers footage illustrating why the Orange County Register called their show “…an arena spectacle.” And the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “The veteran Los Angeles funk-punk fusionists simmered so hot they nearly scorched the eyebrows off fans in the front of the stage.”

You can read the whole review here and you can watch the video on the official site. Selected screencaps from this and previous video will be available here on Invisible Movement as soon as the horrible gallery problem is solved: it doesn’t work neither with a database or a flatfile backend, for those who understand what that means.

And I will set up a temporary page for recent photos tonight, as many people can’t wait to see them and I’m aware of that.

(as seen on pitchforkmedia.com)

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez also has collaborations with Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante up on iTunes right now; they are part of GSL’s Special 12 Single Series compilation, which collects tracks previously released by the label only on 12″. Their two tracks are titled “0″ and “0=2″.