Radiohead

A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)

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On Sunday December 18th, 2016 Dr. Rachel Owen

passed away at the age of 48 from cancer. She was a renowned artist, mixing

photography and printmaking, as well as a scholar in medieval Italian

literature and a retained lecturer who taught Dante’s Divine Comedy to Pembroke

University finalists in Italian. Despite her illness, she continued to teach

and did right until the end of the last Michaelmas term. At her death she left

behind a son and daughter ages 15 and 12. Rachel met Thom Yorke while they were

at the University of Exeter and remained together for 23 years until they split

amicably in August 2015…

A Moon Shaped Pool

is the ninth studio output by Radiohead, released in May 2016. This is an album

highlighted by years of a life lived. Almost like a swan song, or an album of

finality. The death of Rachel adds weight and makes its relevance more felt. I

don’t know why the relationship ended and it doesn’t matter, but songs have now

been written and the lyrics can tell the story through imagery and prose.

I want to focus on three individual tracks from the 11

present.

Near the end of the music video for the song “Daydreaming”

Thom York crawls into an icy, snow filled cave and lays next to a mysterious

fire. It seemed to have already been made for him to warm up to. At that moment

the camera shifts focus and Thom turns his head on its side and his voice

becomes backmasked, a technique the band has used before. Since the song’s

debut fans have worked on that last bit of vocal performance to determine what

Thom was saying. What we know now is that he’s saying the words, "Half of

my life", "I've found my love", or "Every minute, half of

my love". In the video Thom walks through precisely 23 doors, perhaps an

allegory to half the life he spent with Rachel. He seems despondent, confused,

and very tired. Thom’s voice hasn’t sounded as aching as it does on “Daydreaming”.

Adding to the overall feeling of the song is the brilliant orchestration

by Jonny Greenwood. It’s very simplistic, and the minimalism of the piano keys,

electronics, and the buildup of the strings performed by the London Contemporary

Orchestra, make a dramatic scene that’ so overwhelming and outright dazzling it

makes one breathless. There’s no easy way to describe gorgeous music except

with cliché words like beautiful and dazzling. But really, the buildup of the

song sends the listener into orbit, and you float around like a satellite

straddling the earth circumference and looking down on yourself from above. All

that space builds and builds until it comes crashing down at the end with the cello’s

set to low and making growling sounds. It’s a song that is almost too much to

take in at once. It’s draining and you wonder, “Why is this making me feel this

way?” “Why is this song touching these nerves?” That my friend, is the power of

music. The little hairs stand up and you get chills. You stop in your tracks

and tune out everything else.

Radiohead are still full of surprises.

When they jumped ship and deleted all their presence on

social media people got nervous. “What the heck is happening?” “Something fishy

is going on!” “Wait, what are these weird Claymation clips popping up on

Instagram?” “What are those, strings?” “Is that, orchestration?” “My word!”

 “Burn the Witch” was

the first single to be released from the album and it’s accompanying music video

made fully out of Claymation is a site to behold. It escapes all pretentiousness

and makes one guffaw over the idea, the notion that a band as huge as Radiohead

would premiere with such a radical change in sound and vision. For those who

remember UK children’s shows like Camberwick

Green and Trumpton, they immediately

saw social commentary front and center because those shows were innocent and

showcased slice of life scenarios, but the music video instead showcases cult-like

townsfolk who “burn the witch” by setting fire to the main character Wickerman style.

Lyrics in the song like “Stay

in the shadows / Cheer at the gallows” and “Avoid all eye contact / Do not react / Shoot the messengers”

relate to perhaps groupthink, mass surveillance, self-policing, and migrant

crisis, particularly in the UK. Adding to the depth of words is the

orchestration. The strings are using the technique known as col legno battuto,

which is where the player is instructed to strike the string with the stick of

the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. This creates

a percussive sound and throughout the track it chugs along leading the listener

on a journey. That of course disintegrates and we are then met with

conventional chord progression that then erupts into Bernard Herrmann-like

territory that treads on the scary vibe. It then cuts off like someone sliced

it with a knife.

Where do we go from here?

“True Love Waits” is perhaps the albums best track and now

another legendary closer among the likes of “Videotape”, “The Tourist” and "Motion

Picture Soundtrack". This is considered to be one of Thom Yorke’s best

songs and it was already a fan favorite before it was given a studio version. The

song was first performed back in 1995 and since then has been sporadically performed

live with many bootlegs popping up showcasing slightly altered versions. The

most well-known version was added to the ep, I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, which was taken during the bands

2001 tour for Kid A and Amnesiac.

Stripped away and peeled back slowly, the song has now

become the last heartbeat of the album. It’s use of a minimal, four-note piano

figure with overdubs is genius and gives the song a melancholy sadness and earnestness

that is only heightened by the frank and simplistic lyrics.

 

“I’ll drown my beliefs

/ To have your babies / I’ll dress like your niece / And wash your swollen feet”

“I’m not living / I’m

just killing time / Your tiny hands / Your crazy kitten smile”

“And true love waits /

In haunted attics / And true love lives / On lollipops and crisps”

“Just don’t leave /

Don’t leave…”

 

Fitting in relation to the breakup mentioned before, “True

Love Waits” is like saying goodbye to a ghost of your past. Maybe the main

character stumbled upon something that reminded them of things long gone. The

memories come flooding back and It churns the stomach. It’s too much to take

all at once. Oh man, that’s powerful! So many artists try to express those

types of feelings, but never accomplish enough to warrant the sometimes over

dramatic lyrics. Thom wrote something much simpler, and yet more effective. A

for great writing. A scholar of words and such. The years waiting for the song

to finally appear were worth it.

There’s a lot more to be said of A Moon Shaped Pool. More to obsess over, dissect. Not all can be

written down here, but just a few highlights. Radiohead came back in 2016 with

an album that’s not traditional and yet it’s still Radiohead. The remaining

tracks each have their own wealth to discover and overtime people will go back

through each one and touch upon what they think they mean and what it feels like to them personally.

This review is just the start of a conversation really.

Not all can be cracked at the start. It takes time to sink in, to reflect upon.

Good music can age like fine wine and Radiohead are nine bottles in. Dig it…