A Coded Masterpiece 

 

Radiohead had easily shrugged off the weight of being musical messiahs by choosing a fringe route in their previous album, The King of Limbs. But this album, A Moon Shaped Pool, is different. The first song Burn the Witch announce loud and clear that they’re here to engage and show a different world where music and thought can bloom. I was in tears when I heard the song. A Moon Shaped Pool is a coded entry pass to a different world. There is a parallel narrative of noise, dissonance and natural sounds that follow their own path in the album. Both narratives from the music and from the analogisms lead to a very special place... the present tense… as the ninth song (Present Tense) is aptly titled. 

This is not a one-listen album. I’d say it’s a solo listening album, or one that’s good to hear with your soulmate, or a fellow fan. It’s made for now. It’s made for the earphones. There’s so much detail in it and so many hidden gems that I feel like I’m carrying a vault in my phone. Every subsequent listen reveals something new. The words in the album mean very specific things but some are truly open ended and I’d discourage you from getting into song meanings, online. I suggest you find your own. It can be a fun exercise to see the range of things these words can mean.  This album won’t come to you. You’ll have to go to it.  That’s the main message I get from this music. Think and feel. 

Many Different Radioheads

This album features the ghostly grooves, uncomfortable guitar sounds and weird vocals that have made these guys from Oxfordshire the most relevant ‘rock band’ on the planet. Nigel Godrich’s amazing production is highlighted on songs like Ful Stop. My personal favourite is the lush and cinematic Daydreaming which has a gorgeous music video to go with it. This album sees many different Radioheads, the listener travels from cinema soundtracks to weird jams quite suddenly, a real adventure of sound and emotion. Radiohead have made a truly meditative and engaging record here. 

A Strangely Cathartic Album

A Moon Shaped Pool, as weird as the name sounds, is a dark, melancholic and a strangely cathartic album. It begins with the staccato string lines of Burn the Witch which builds up into a ‘low-flying panic attack’ as Yorke sings it with his characteristic murmur. The climactic crescendo reminds me of a typical Hans Zimmer soundtrack. Moving on to my next favourite, Daydreaming, Yorke croons, ‘Dreamers, they never learn’, moves in and out of rooms and places (in the video) and ends up crawling into a cave. The video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson provides an extraordinary visual of loneliness. Yorke closes his eyes while the song closes with the lyrics ‘half of my life’ sung backwards. Desert Island Deck, the next highlight of the album has a more positive outlook in terms of both melody and lyrics. ‘You know what I mean, different types of love are possible’ seems like a confession, or a certain kind of submission. But what really struck me in the album is the album closer True Love Waits. The poignance in the piano arpeggio blooms beautifully when he sings, ‘And true love waits in haunted attics, and true love waits on lollipops and crisps. Just don’t leave, don’t leave’. 

A Return To A Sonically More Familiar Space

Radiohead albums aren’t just records, they are an experience. Every record is a different feeling, a different experience.
The new album kicks off with Burn the Witch, which I take the liberty to interpret as a take on today’s world of hyper-surveillance, Big Brotheresque governments and the tendency to allow ourselves to be controlled, give in to ignorance and loose talk. It fills me with great joy that Radiohead takes a stand on politics and society because it is essential for a musician to educate and to enlighten one’s listeners, if nothing else. The six-minute long Daydreaming fills me with a strange sense of melancholy and I’m left wondering if it ever ends well, for those who dream. Decks Dark and Desert Island Disk further strengthen these feelings of isolation, loneliness and despair in a world of endless technological advancements. The beauty of this record is not just in the intricate artistry but the ability to make it sound so simple and yet so effective.

I immediately fall in love with Identikit as Thom Yorke sings, ‘Broken hearts make it rain’ and true to Radiohead fashion, there is much sadness in every song, but it’s all gloriously beautiful and you enjoy experiencing this pain.

My favourite song is a rearranged version of True Love Waits, which demands repeated listens and no less. A Moon Shaped Pool is a departure from the heavily electronic soundscapes of The King of Limbs and Radiohead seemed to have returned to a sonically more familiar space, with lots of good old-fashioned piano, guitars and fantastic songwriting. 

Which is your fave Radiohead album and why? Tell t2@abp.in

 

It has been 23 years since Radiohead released their first album Pablo Honey in 1993. A fanboy lists eight reasons why he feels Radiohead is one of the most important bands of his generation...

 

♦ Because Radiohead are obsessed with technology and how it affects us. They even released an app called PolyFauna (available on Google Play) which is inspired by “interest in early computer-life experiments and the imaginary creatures of the subconscious.” In the ‘game’ you can roam around a digital landscape which modifies itself as snippets of tracks from The King of Limbs are played in the background.

♦ Because Thom Yorke’s voice is what beautiful agony sounds like. Radiohead has the uncanny ability to render the most depressing themes in magical soundscapes. 

♦ Because sometimes they sound even better live! Their live concerts are a surreal experience. Take for instance the concert they played at Saitama in Japan in 2008. The stage had lights which were shaped like icicles dropping from above, and the lights changed with each song. 

♦ Because All I Need is pure immersive poetry on tape. Yorke sings, “I’m the next act/ Waiting in the wings/ I am an animal trapped in your hot car/ I am all the days that you choose to ignore.” The song builds up until it reaches a crescendo with Thom Yorke hitting the piano keys. The experience is of untainted cathartic bliss. 

♦ Radiohead’s music videos are unique and characteristically dismal. The video for No Surprises shows Yorke’s head inside a glass bowl which gradually fills up with water as the song progresses, almost suffocating him as the lyrics scrawl upwards, projected on his face. In Daydreaming, the middle-aged Yorke walks through a series of doors without stopping, with a blank expression on his face. 

♦ Yorke was the Holden Caulfield figure I found before I read Catcher in the Rye. For a teenager with vacillating ambitions, and the ever-present adolescent anxiety of not being able to fit in, Yorke singing, “I’d show them the stars/And the meaning of life/They’d shut me away/But I’d be all right” on Subterranean Homesick Alien gave me solace. It told me that it was okay to feel like an outsider at times. What mattered was that there was someone else who understood that. 

♦ Because Thom Yorke has the sickest dance moves that no other human being can replicate. Just watch any of their live performances of Idioteque or Lotus Flower.   

♦ Because they decided to release True Love Waits, a song which has been a fan favourite for the past 15 years, on their latest album. Ever since the song appeared on the 2001 live album I Might Be Wrong, it had won the hearts of thousands of heartbroken listeners.       

Debroop Basu