![]() ![]() The choice to mark Kid A and Amnesiac in this way also makes sense from a purely personal point of view. However, Kid A and Amnesiac pushed that trajectory much further, incorporating influences from ambient, electronic, jazz, and post-rock and often eschewing guitars or traditional rock ’n’ roll structures altogether. Looking back, Kid A and Amnesiac are sometimes overlooked in the shadow of OK Computer - arguably the band’s most widely known effort, as well as the one that’s frequently credited for revolutionizing their sound and putting them on a firmly experimental trajectory. It is fitting, too, that Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition commemorates 20-something years since the band’s fourth and fifth studio albums, recorded at the same time but released in 20 respectively. There is a sense in which it was only a matter of time before Radiohead expanded into one of entertainment’s most interactive mediums with Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition. Guitarist Johnny Greenwood scored Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood back in 2007, for example, and Anderson worked with frontman Thom Yorke in 2019 on a short film for Netflix and IMAX. Nor is it completely unexpected - virtual performances by real-life artists are increasingly common, and members of Radiohead have toyed with the boundaries between music and other forms of artistic expression for years. It’s a snapshot of a band taking step back from themselves and the way they worked, finding a way forward in the process.In a year that has given us the likes of Genesis Noir, Mundaun, and Cruelty Squad, a virtual art exhibition by one of the world’s biggest rock bands is perhaps not the most unusual release in the medium. In the outtakes, we get glimpses of the band’s past (the paranoiac folk of “Follow Me Around“) and future (the deconstructed, full-band sound of “If You Say the Word”), as well as versions of “Like Spinning Plates” and “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” that chart their evolution in real time. The constraints opened doors: Not only did the band discover new ways of working (and, by extension, refresh their passion for music after years of unyielding pressure), but, in doing so, they shifted the template for what we think of when we think of a rock band, mixing the acoustic and the electronic (“Everything in Its Right Place,” “Like Spinning Plates”) and relatively straightforward tracks (“Optimistic,” “Pyramid Song”) with fragmentary, discursive ones (“Kid A,” “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors”). As guitarist Ed O’Brien once put it, he was a guitarist faced with a bunch of tracks that had no guitar.Īt one point, producer Nigel Godrich split the band into two groups: one working with instruments in the main recording area, the other in a programming room processing sounds from next door, all under the condition that no acoustic instruments-guitars, drums, etc.-be used. ![]() Recording sessions were tough: Thom Yorke had writer’s block, and his new commitment to electronic music-or, at least, a turn away from conventional rock-left some of his bandmates wondering about their function and purpose. KID A MNESIA isn’t just an occasion to revisit a pair of groundbreaking albums (2000’s Kid A and 2001’s Amnesiac), but a chance to hear a little of how Radiohead got there. ![]()
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