THOM YORKE

Unlike Radiohead's more experimental electronic efforts of stuff like Kid A, Amnesiac, and The King Of Limbs which hold more of the band's early alt rock ideologies, what Thom shows on The Eraser goes further on a focus of a pop sound, with catchy and hooky songs. However, this is probably one of the least commercial records Thom has made. Many of these songs showcase a very fine-tuned experimental quality that Thom clearly has mastered as a frontman, and it makes songs like Skip Divided and Cymbal Rush, while still clearly pop in direction and sound, have a very strange and disconnected sound that I feel works massively in Thom's favor.

Furthermore, I think this is Thom's best singing in his entire career. He is so clear and strangely vibrant on this release. What I really like about his voice here is how it fits nicely within the music being played here. His phonetics and his range really does allow this music to shine the brightest in its melancholy fortitude. I feel like without his voice, this'd be a neat, but not quite superb album, but his voice does add the right amount of details within the music that I end up really loving this.

I guess the one thing I do not really like about this album is that I never felt quite in-tuned to it unlike other releases Thom Yorke made. This is more of a personal thing, but I can never quite put my finger on why I never quite was moved by this unlike, say, ANIMA. I do groove along to these songs, but I can always tell this is Thom's first solo project, and thus doesn't quite hold the maturity, and ultimately musical finesse that his later releases give me. Still a very great album, but one I am not quite in balance to yet.

If you love Radiohead, then this album is practically for you. It holds many of Thom's most experimental, but still rather pop driven songs that can definitely be for a good listen. If you also like more glitch pop, IDM, trip hop music like Bjork, Aphex Twin, and Massive Attack then you'd also really like this album. It is a very nicely made album, and one that I may pop in a few times.

Thom Yorke´s ANIMA (2019) a nine track release will appeal instantly to any Radiohead head.

Not being a Radiohead head myself or a "Yorker" I can look at it all from an objective distance and find its merits and as far as it seems recurrent flaws.

So yes this is his best solo output up to now but in the general context of contemporary electronic music I could hardly set it as masterpiece of this expansive and vast universe but a gem in his solo discography it is without doubt.

The Radiohead reference is for real though taken to contemporary electronic music stylings, which include Dub Step, Drum & Bass, IDM, Hip Hop and all the etcs. you can come up with and of course with a first class studio production (which actually is a must with these kind of contemporary electronic music loved/hated mainstream productions).

When he blends in the bizarre RH idiom with these styles the music sounds great but when he dwells into the cliches of these styles as if discovering America things can get messy.

So maybe some hard core RH fan who has never followed these electronic music stylings will be listening and maybe thinking Thom is working novel wonders, but to anyone outside the RH circle and also the general Prog one, but close to these contemporary electronic music styles would hardly be impressed with the full album as such and maybe, as I, only with half of it.

(Even though, I only tolerate Thom Yorke´s boyyish vocal range just because I admit his great talents as composer also have to admit he´s not that good or original when he "borrows" it. )

Anyway, anyone who went nuts with Kid A or Ok Computer will adore this album, the rest should give it a spin cause what is worth listening is thrilling but what´s not would not compensate the price of the full album.

***/*

It will turn out to be an oddity that this kind of electronic styles will appeal to the average prog enthusiast who hardly considers this to be prog music.

I will agree on this by the cold fact of how oblivious the prog community is of their own Progressive-Electronic genre. Anyway, this project is not the best defense for this outside of prog electronic music.

Music wise it starts with the most memorable song of the album and from there everything becomes a super-extended remix of ambiental dub-step passages alongside Yorke's eerie and boyish manner of singing. Some splendid highlights here and there but composition wise I have heard a thousand guys doing this and Thom Yorke's proposals are quiet lame in comparisson.

Although the impeccable sound-engineering, (which in this kind of music it is the usual deal), the un-melodious abstractions as such sound completely replaceable, I mean you could take away or remove any track but the first, and it will be the same.

Could appeal to prog Electronic people or Post-Math followers or Radiohead's heads

3 PA´s stars

Before Your Very Eyes?: Features a dance beat, with an ostinato being repeated over the top. Thom's vocals are simple and dreamy, but they aren't what stands out; what stands out is the overall feeling and atmosphere of the song, which is quite dreamy while still having a beat underneath. As is the case with many of the other songs, you have trouble discerning what sounds come from a computer and what sounds come from an instrument. The track gets boring after a few minutes, and it doesn't work fantastically as an album opener. 4/10

Default: Opens sounding a bit like video game music, but quickly turns into an experimental electronica track. The vocals are more prominent in this song when compared to 'Before Your Very Eyes'. The textures underneath the vocals are almost all electronic sounds. There's some cool synth-sounding stuff, and complex beats. It's slightly more interesting than the first track. 5/10

Ingenue: Opens with strange sounding synth sounds, but is soon accompanied by a beat underneath and vocals. The feel to the song is quite dreamy. The main negative point is the fact that there's too much repetition and not enough change to keep interest. Still, it's an enjoyable song. 8/10

Dropped: Has a repetitive sounding beat. This is a song which finally has some different sections and changes things up. While this is the case, it's not a very interesting track. There are more mellow bits, and more intense and busy parts. I like that about the song, but unfortunately the music itself isn't very interesting. 6/10

Unless: One of the best tracks so far. The vocals and music feel quite urgent sounding, in a good way. The textures from the electronics are intriguing, and the backwards singing about halfway through is actually pulled off pretty well. 8/10

Stuck Together Pieces: The bass ostinato is mildly interesting at the beginning, but it's not really enough to keep interest. The acoustic guitar that starts about halfway through adds interest but sounds a bit wrong. Like the other tracks, it gets boring towards the end because the same things are repeated over and over. 4/10

Judge, Jury and Executioner: The textures within this track are quite enjoyable. The overall feeling of the track is nice, but isn't a very captivating track in terms of songwriting. The acoustic guitar works much better here than on 'Stuck Together Pieces'. The Radiohead song that has the same title as this song is a better song than this one. 6/10

Reverse Running: The electronic beats that open this song are complex and intricate, and are odd and uneasy. Electric guitar on this song adds another texture to the beats and vocals. I don't really have much to say about this song; it's a fairly bland track with some intriguing beats. 3.5/10

Amok: It opens sounding like it could be one of the few good tracks on the album, with more complex beats continuing from the start until about 1:30 through, when some quiet and processed vocals join. Quite an atmospheric song. It suffers from the same problem that most of the other songs suffer from, which is that it doesn't really go anywhere but just repeats itself. Actually works pretty well as an album closer though. 6/10

Positives about the album: The complexity of the electronics, the intriguing textures Negatives about the album: The songs aren't very interesting and don't have much change.

Average: 5.6/10 = 3/5

1. Burial was fresh off of his twin masterpieces Burial (2006) and Untrue (2007) when he remixed Thom Yorke's track. What a coup for Yorke! I may be biased (after all, my avatar currently features Untrue's album cover), but I think every single track Burial has released is crucial - like Robert Johnson's was. (I'm not exaggerating.) Furthermore, Burial's only remixed six tracks by my count. Still, I rank this behind his towering remixes of Bloc Party's Where Is Home? and Massive Attack's Paradise Circus, as well as his remix of Jamie Woon's Wayfaring Stranger. By the way, in 2011, Yorke, Burial, and Four Tet collaborated on the Ego/Mirror EP.

2. Surgeon is the DJ I know the very least about on this collection. I prefer the original version, which had more tonal colors, but this version doesn't differ all that much.

3. Before Burial's identity was apparently outed, many speculated that he was in fact The Bug. The Bug's brand of dancehall dubstep channeled a similar dark, paranoid, urban dystopia as Burial's music. Similarly, both released tracks for Kode9's Hyperdub label. (Both Burial and The Bug are featured prominently on the great compilation entitled Five Years of Hyperdub.) There are only a handful of truly great dubstep albums, and The Bug has released two of them: London Zoo (2008), and Waiting For You (2009), released under his King Midas moniker. The Bug's remix of Yorke's Harrowdown Hill is a fine track, and wouldn't be out of place on his London Zoo album.

4. Modeselektor is an electronic duo from Berlin. Yorke is a big fan, and has sung on two Modeselektor albums (including the highly-recommended track The White Flash, also from 2007). I prefer this version to the original version on The Eraser, which was never my favorite track. Modeselektor additonally contributed a remix to The King of Limbs remix album.

5. This remix album apparently helped establish a deep friendship between Yorke and other performers on this album, including Four Tet, who has since collaborated with Yorke on a few occasions, and also contributed a track to Radiohead's King of Limbs remix album. Again, a nice remix here.

6. The Field is a German-based Swedish DJ, and a major act on the Köln/Cologne-based Kompakt label, which is one of the truly, truly great electronic music labels. Furthermore, The Field were fresh off releasing arguably their greatest album, 2007's From Here We Go Sublime. While all the other remixes thus far have been respectful to the original versions and didn't tamper too much with the structure of the tracks, The Field have utterly deconstructed it. I love this remix - it's unrecognizable from the original version, and it's done in The Field's inimitable, minimalist style that makes Kompakt such a compelling label in German techno.

7. Christian Vogel is another EDM artist I'm not terribly familiar with, although his name pops up alot. He's released tracks on the Warp and Tresor labels, which is a pretty good indication of his stature. Furthermore, he's featured *twice* on this remix! Both are excellent remixes, one of my favorites on this album.

8. Various Productions is another EDM artist I'm unfamiliar with. This is the one remix I could do without, it's a bit over the top, and too brash for my liking.

What we get in the interim is this. Released under the moniker "Atoms for Peace" (no one is fooled, this is a Yorke album through and through, with, as usual, Godrich's considerable imput), Amok's recording history is rather interesting, and can be thought of as experimental: At some point a year or two a go, the "band" went into the studio and simply jammed for a few days. Yorke took the tapes home, and with his computer basically went to town on the recordings. So far, so good. Sounds like a great way to make an album. Miles Davis and his producer Teo Macero did something similar, and they came up with "Bitches Brew."

Unfortunately, unlike The Eraser, Amok simply doesn't have the tunes. I've been listening for a week now, and still there's nothing for me to grab on to, no melody I can hum, nothing I can sing along with, no lyrics that jump out, no melodies burning their way in. Sure it has its moments, - for example, the beginning of "Ingenue" and the end of "Reverse Running" are rather gorgeous-sounding - but overall the album isn't compelling, the songs don't seem to go anywhere, and lack the kind of urgency Yorke usually brings. I don't want to give the wrong impression: the album is amazing sonically. Often here though I get the feeling Yorke's voice is more a hindrance to the sound, and some of these tracks would sound better as instrumentals. (Perhaps I need to accept the album for what it is, rather than what it isn't, and when I stop resisting, I'll come to terms with it and appreciate it.)

After the rather disappointing King of Limbs from 2011, I had high hopes for this album. But that album is looking pretty good now, when set alongside this. Who knows, after time I might revise my opinion and look upon it more favorably. For now, however, it's highly underwhelming, and one of my biggest disappointments in recent memory from any band I can think of. I'll keep trying, because I'm convinced of Thom's genius, I *want* to love this album, and I know he has a lot of great work left in him.

Rating: 7/10

THE ERASER picks up where KID A, AMNESIAC, and HAIL TO THE THIEF left off (although it's more cohesive than HTTT). The opening track "The Eraser" is nearly as compelling a beginning as KID A's "Everything In Its Right Place." The second track, "Analyse," is a grower. (Thom did a stunning solo keyboard version for XFM Radio, which can be found on Youtube, and which sounds remarkably like Cliff Martinez's marvelous score for the 2002 film version of 'Solaris'.) Next track "The Clock" is sonically beautiful, and reminds me a lot of Icelandic electronic band Mum's classic "Smell Memory." (Surely this was an influence on Yorke.) The best song might be "Harrowdown Hill," about David Kelly, a British UN weapons inspector in Iraq who mysteriously died days after testifying to Parliament that the Bush-Blair governments were fabricating evidence about weapons in Iraq. In fact, this album is obviously a passionate and angry album, which lends an immediacy to Thom's voice.

I know most won't agree, but to me these songs are better than anything than on IN RAINBOWS, besides the aforementioned "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." While IN RAINBOWS found the band retreating from the electronica experiments the band had earlier pioneered, THE ERASER delves further into this realm.

BTW, fans of this album should check out German electronic band Modeselektor's album HAPPY BIRTHDAY, released around the same time, which contains the song "The White Flash" featuring Yorke on vocals. It's another Yorke masterpiece in the same vein as THE ERASER.

The too-slim 41-minute running time (barely album length in a digital age) includes at least one potential classic: "Analyse", easily the most overtly Radiohead-like song of the entire set. It could have been an outtake from the "Kid A" or "Amnesiac" sessions, and thus from my not unbiased perspective is the best thing here.

Elsewhere the album presents a brace of post-modern ballads for our wired new millennium, showing what a single motivated artist with a laptop is capable of. Bandmate Jonny Greenwood is on hand for support, but only on piano; Yorke himself is otherwise given credit for 'all instruments and programming'. But of course these days the programs 'are' the instruments.

The results aren't entirely as antiseptic as you might expect, however. The singer's quavering voice provides a welcome human touchstone in what can sometimes seem like a sterile technological experience. Listen for example to the song "Atoms For Peace", and tell me he doesn't remind you of Joni Mitchell: an odd comparison maybe, but not an unflattering one (I hope).

Bottom line: it's a valuable windfall to latter-day Radiohead fans starved for new material, and a worthwhile diversion for students of electronic music who might have been wondering about the legacy of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider.