How Radiohead avoid extinction • DIY Magazine

In an age of surprise releases and instant reaction, rarely does an album arrive so tightly-packed that snap judgements - beyond 140 character hyperventilations - are pretty much obsolete. But Radiohead’s dense and overwhelming ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ already has one eureka moment lurking inside.

In an overwhelming combination of fragments from the band’s past, everything is familiar here - there’s nothing devoutly new about these songs. But Thom Yorke’s electronic-minded rhythms and Jonny Greenwood’s grand, cinematic orchestration were always separate elements, doing their own thing. This time they go hand in hand, two potential opposites finding acceptance. And in a thinking-face-emoji, very Radiohead way, it’s a new experience that requires attention.

It’s still staggering, two and a half decades in, to find Radiohead as a group in progress. Hailed as the lone survivors of since stagnant movements, they’re the only band who can be counted on to reinvent, time and time again.

What’s significant about ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’, even on first glance, is their ability to evolve without flipping the formula. For the first time, they’ve been able to embrace their past and use past motifs as a tool.

2011’s ‘The King of Limbs’, for all its strengths, was far from their best work. It wrestled with jazz-nodding ticks and tough electronics, standing feet away from traditional song structures. There was a determination to do something different. As Jonny Greenwood told Rolling Stone - on the one hand, they didn’t want to “pick up guitars and write chord sequences.” But in a shun to the ‘Kid A’ days, they “didn’t want to sit in front of a computer either.”

So in a bid to survive - because every Radiohead album has this life-or-death gravity attached to it - they “wanted a third thing, which involved playing and programming.” ‘Bloom’’s percussive overload succeeded, while the more shuffling ‘Morning Mr Magpie’ suffered, Yorke singing about how a foe “took my melody” like a man searching for his keys. They’d reinvented once more, but it came at a cost.

“For the first time, they’ve been able to embrace their past and use past motifs as a tool.”

‘TKOL’’s follow-up instead decides to borrow from the past for inspiration. Opener ‘Burn the Witch’ was first written in the pre-‘In Rainbows’ days. Shuddering, ‘Pyramid Song’-style piano chords and hyper-paranoid lyrics were the only traces of its existence - a full version wasn’t released at the time. Today, depending on who you ask, it’s been recycled into a beautiful but anxious commentary on the refugee crisis, hate-mongering U.S. Presidential candidates and a surveillance state. Pick a subject, but whatever the truth behind ‘Burn the Witch’, a song that’s existed for over the decade has found the perfect home.

The same applies to ‘True Love Waits’. Penned in 1995 at the time of ‘The Bends’, it’s existed in pure form for over two decades. The heartbreaking lines “I’ll drown my beliefs / To have your babies” and “Please don’t leave / Don’t leave” haven’t been altered. So what makes it the ideal closer for ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’? It wouldn’t be childish speculation to put the move down to Thom Yorke’s recent split from his partner of twenty-three years. A song that’s existed as long as the relationship has - the finality of its simple, chiming recorded version makes sense. But again - in order to take the next step which they infinitely pursue, Radiohead are looking back before trying to predict the future.

“Radiohead appear to have finally accepted their history.”

A move like this isn’t unique in the band’s history. In fact, Jonny Greenwood recently told Dutch website 3voor12 that “there’s a very old song on each album.” See ‘Nude’ on ‘In Rainbows’, for instance. Who knows, maybe Thom wrote ‘Idioteque’ when he was still in the pram. In Greenwood’s same interview, he balks at rumours they might be re-jigging ‘OK Computer’-era favourite ‘Lift’ for the ninth album. The idea of raiding the archives isn’t alien to Radiohead - far from it.

In that case, maybe the magic of ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ is in how they motion through the past instead of giving old songs emergency resuscitation. Any of these tracks could be snapshots of what came before. ‘Desert Island Disk’ has the same open-air spirit as ‘In Rainbows’’ ‘Faust Arp’. ‘Ful Stop’ merges the sharpness of ‘Hail to the Thief’ with ‘Kid A’’s future-is-bleak instrumentation. ‘Daydreaming’ could sit pretty on any of their past five albums. There is nothing revolutionary about this record, with one exception - Radiohead finally seem content with their past, instead of trying to escape from its clutches. For most bands, when this acceptance kicks in, it’s time to stick on the kettle, put on The One Show and forget about the future. This record has the opposite effect, which is what makes it so exciting.

They remain hopelessly entangled with innovation. They’ll always be banging their heads against the wall, coaxing out their next move. And it’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long. But previously, Radiohead would stamp on their trademarks, fingers in ears, shouting “na-na-na-na-na!” by pretending ‘OK Computer’ never existed. There was a strange shame attached to their heroics, a bored-of-that-shit dismissiveness. As ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ ages, we’ll no doubt discover new-fangled recording techniques behind the record, stories about being in a stick-or-twist situation at the risk of extinction. But it’s already a significant moment, because they appear to have finally accepted their history.

Tags: Features, Radiohead