Music

Radiohead are in an odd place right now. Not only have they barely begun work on their seventh LP, but their time with long-term label EMI is up and now Thom Yorke has made a solo album. This is certainly far less of a threat to Radiohead than it would be to many more ego-driven bands; they are nothing if not grown-ups and guitarist Jonny Greenwood made the first solo move with his ‘Bodysong’ soundtrack album in 2003. Fans patiently sitting it out until the next group release, however, should be well satisfied with ‘The Eraser’.

Yorke admits that it was his own loss of faith in Radiohead’s future after ‘Hail To The Thief’ and a (shared) feeling that the band had become a self-perpetuating obligation that led him to start tinkering around on his laptop, before beginning work with Nigel Godrich late in 2004. The result is a twitchy mix of broken beats, skittery electronica and muted vocals similar to that which characterised the glitchy Radiohead incarnation that began with ‘Kid A’, but Yorke’s avant interests (John Cage, Arvo Pärt, Satie, Roedelius, Rephlex, Antipop Consortium…) are more evident. ‘The Eraser’ is also strikingly minimal and so intimate in both emotional pitch and production that it often seems like Yorke is murmuring directly into your ear.

That said, it’s very much a political, rather than personally revealing record. Yorke has never minced his words and he seems thoroughly pissed off with the current state of play, the environmental crisis being top of his list of concerns. ‘This is fucked up,’ he sings in the moodily blue ‘Black Swan’, then, ‘you tried to please everyone, but it isn’t happening’. Blair’s name is there in parenthesis. ‘Harrowdown Hill’ pulls even fewer punches – it’s the name of the Oxfordshire woods where Dr David Kelly’s body was found. All of which makes this album sound gloomy beyond belief. It’s not; Yorke’s fervour both warms and enlivens ‘The Eraser’. He may well be livid, but he’s made  a sheerly lovely record.