When it comes to posh wonky-eyed, vaguely political, proggish depressotunes that sound a bit like Travis, everyone's first port of call should be Radiohead. But Thom Yorke is going it alone for a bit.
One of these facts about the Thom Yorke solo project is false: 1) The Thom Yorke solo songs were produced by long-term Radiohead desk wizard Nigel Godrich, 2) One of the Thom Yorke solo songs will play at the end of the new Keanu Reeves flick, 3) The first Thom Yorke solo single will be a uptempo ragga cover of I Got Five On It by Luniz…
We can't blame Thom Yorke for deciding to go solo – if we were in Radiohead for as long as Thom has been, we'd want to get away from it all for a while, too. Partly because it'd mean we'd get to – gasp – smile for once, and partly because that bald drummer creeps us the hell out. And we'd be jealous of the screentime the other members of Radiohead got in the last Harry Potter film, too.
But, regardless of the reason Thom Yorke decided to go solo, the fact is that he has, and his new album The Eraser is coming out in July. We don't know the details of it, but we'd say that the release of The Eraser by Thom Yorke means that Thom Yorke is a big traitor and Radiohead is splitting up blah blah. In an email to his fans, Thom Yorke wrote:
this is just a note to say that something has been kicking around in the background that i have not told you about.
its called The Eraser.
nigel produced & arranged it .
i wrote and played it.
the elements have been kicking round now for a few years and needed to
be finished & i have been itching to do something like this for
ages.
it was fun and quick to do.
inevitably it is more beats & electronics.
but its songs.
stanley did the cover.
yes its a record!
no its not a radiohead record.
as you know the band are now touring and writing new stuff and getting
to a good space so i want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever
splitting up blah blah…
this was all done with their blessing. and i don't wanna hear that word solo. doesnt sound right.
ok then thats that.
Oh, OK, so we were wrong about the splitting up and traitor stuff. Still, we hope that Thom Yorke has put more care into The Eraser than he has over capital letters and apostrophes. The Eraser by Thom Yorke will be released on July 11, and one of his songs, Black Swan, will play over the credits of A Scanner Darkly, the forthcoming Keanu Reeves movie.
Meanwhile, Radiohead are continuing to write and record their seventh album. And since Thom has got all that sub-Aphex Twin electronic guff out of his system with The Eraser, maybe the new Radiohead album will actually feature some, you know, tunes.
Read more:
Radiohead's Yorke Flies Solo – E! Online
[story by Stuart Heritage]