Kid A, and: Amnesiac, and: Hail to the Thief (review)

A hungry search for new sounds has led a famous guitar band deeper into the world of electronic music. Perhaps they were doomed to this course from the moment they called their third album OK Computer (1997). With Kid A (2000), and its companion Amnesiac (2001), came a much publicized dive from live performance to studio exploration, an epic struggle with technology averaging six weeks studio time per track. The band seems to have survived the plunge and been strengthened by the experience: witness their latest release, Hail to the Thief (2003). This album of 14 songs was recorded smoothly in two weeks, and includes both guitar/drum and electronic arrangements. Reputed to show the band reneging on the use of computers, in fact, it shows a more pragmatic and spontaneous approach.

The last two studio records [Kid A and Amnesiac] were a real headache . . . we had spent so much time looking at computers and grids, we were like, 'That's enough. We can't do that anymore.' This time, we used computers, but they had to actually be in the room with all the gear. So everything was about performance, like staging a play. (Yorke, T. Online interview, June 2003, www.mtv.com/bands/r/radiohead/news_feature_061903/index2.jhtml)

A useful insight into the Radiohead composition process is that of an intensely rehearsing band who are open to new technologies to keep their live shows and song settings fresh. Paul Lansky, computer musician and Princeton professor brought by means of sampling into the Radiohead orbit, notes that: "As far as I can tell they just use whatever is convenient and interesting to them. I have an unconfirmed sense that there is an interesting kind of friction between electronic and performed means going on in their work" (Lansky, P. 2003. Personal communication).

To illustrate that rehearsal preparations and gigging are integral to the band's pre-production process, live performances by Radiohead are extremely close to the studio recordings, and only Kid A–era material has been post-adapted to the live regime. As composers, Radiohead are a unit: most song outlines and the lyrics come from their lead singer, Thom Yorke, although the whole band has a hand in deciding on the arrangements.

Rather than exhaustively document each track across the three albums reviewed here, I would like to highlight some of the more interesting sonic explorations for the readership of this journal. It is helpful to consider that, aside from rare ambient instrumentals, all Radiohead tracks are well-crafted songs. So, please take as given that the song-writing is competent. Although certainly atypically interesting for a popular guitar band, with a good line in multiple accent streams, non-standard bar divisions, and a wider harmonic net than might be at first supposed, this collection of tracks has the usual complement of diatonic vocal lines and simple major/minor chords.

The Kid A album is the most direct manifestation of electronica influences and techniques, and represents perhaps the greatest about-face ever accomplished by a guitar band. No standard guitar is heard until track 4, How to Disappear Completely, and though more overt playing turns up on tracks 6 and 7, the guitars elsewhere provide only subtle nuances. Much of the album is spent in the lure of minimalesque (but torturously detailed) arrangements that combine both coldness and warmth in the ambivalent way of contemporary electronica. The short-envelope noises and impulse clicks, the waft of air for pressure's sake, the tightly filtered percussion and pallid drone-states of glitchcraft all make their appearance.

For the first two tracks, the...