ATOMS FOR PEACE

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The synthesized soundscapes of Thom Yorke's Atoms For Peace

by Matt Ashare |  

Posted April 3, 2013

In the weeks that have passed since the release of AMOK, the debut album by the Thom Yorke-helmed project Atoms For Peace, I've had a chance to reflect on just how far Radohead have deviated from the rockist norm over the past two decades. It's no secret that the band — to the extent you can still call them that — have long since evolved away from the fairly typical, if also exceptional, guitar-driven angst of "Creep," the searingly somber 1992 anti-anthem breakthrough single that they all but disowned only a few years later. Or, that the masterfully dystopic grandeur of The Bends and OK Computer led them deep into the heart of Millennial madness, where more experimental compositions crafted from synths and programmed rhythms have taken the place of easy hooks and straightforward melodies. But, among what might be considered their peers or forebears, Radiohead are unusual in far more unusual ways.

       Sure, they've remained intact as five guys who appear on stage together from time to time to perform songs they've written, ostensibly with some degree of collaboration. And, yet, with the exception of Yorke's plaintively tensile vocals, the band's single signature element, it's become increasingly difficult to discern the roles of the other members, even though, presumably, they all have a part to play. At least as a studio entity, Radiohead have succeeded on a grand scale at undoing the romantic myth of the archetypical Brit band, embodied by the mythical Beatles, with their Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, the designated lead guitarist, and the chummy drummer. With the Stones, you've got the combustible Jagger/Richards core. U2, even at their most abstract, offer the comfort of the interplay between Bono's yearning vocals and the Edge's sinewy guitar figures. And, so it's gone and continues to go with so many other mega bands.

       But, not Radiohead. And, AMOK, which pairs Yorke with longstanding Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, as well as a backing band that includes Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Mauro Refosco, session drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M. and Beck are two of the more notable gigs he's had), and Red Hot Chili Peppers' ubiquitous bassist Flea, is just the latest refraction of this principle.

       For starters, the Atoms For Peace line-up, which came together in 2009 to perform the tracks from Yorke's Godrich-enabled solo album The Eraser, isn't much of a departure from what Radiohead have morphed into over the last decade — five guys with indeterminate roles in the studio/songwriting process. Similarly, the reductionist, less-is-more aesthetic employed by Yorke, coupled with Godrich's cut-and-paste tonal tweaking, depersonalizes most, if not all, of the instrumental contributions. Waronker, for example, may be a monster drummer. And his sensibility may have contributed to the flow of any number of the nine tracks on AMOK. But, post-production, most of the rhythmic underpinnings on the album sound programmed. And, if that's finger-popping Flea on bass, then it almost certainly amounts to some of his most restrained playing ever. Indeed, Atoms For Peace may rise to the level of a "supergroup," as some have already noted, but AMOK, like much of Radiohead's most recent album King of Limbs (2011), has the impersonal sound and feel of a laptop-pop construction, with Yorke's ethereal voice playing the role of the ghost in this benign permutation of the soulless machine.

       Fittingly enough, while a full-band version of Atoms For Peace will be performing a few select shows to support the new album later this year, the first live video posted on the band's YouTube channel features just Yorke and Godrich twiddling knobs behind two consoles as they "perform" an extended, techno-fried version of the glitchy album track "Default." The song, with its clipped, mechanized syncopations and skeletal synths, doesn't appear to suffer for lack of live instrumentation because, well, nothing on the album cut has the visceral impact of live-to-tape performance. As with much of AMOK, "Default" mostly serves as a cooly minimalist frame for Yorke's yearning vocals, which float hauntingly around the permitters of a melody, occasionally coming into focus for a phrase or two — "The will is strong/But the flesh is weak," and "I made my bed/I'll lie in it."

       Admittedly, that's not particularly profound in print. But Yorke prefers the suggestive to the declamatory, and he does delicately disembodied as convincingly as any singer around. That's the real beauty of where Yorke and Godrich have arrived with their particular art. As MacBook pros, they're free to sample from the far side of electronica, blending dour synth tones with percolating rhythms that, like so-called IDM (a/k/a "intelligent dance music"), create grooves that aren never quite danceable. And, yeah, even on AMOK there are occasional glimpses of guitar, like the squirrelly figure that fleets through "Before Your Very Eyes. . .," the disc's enervated opening track. But the dominant instrument is always Yorke's evocative voice, which conveys potent waves of mixed emotion even when he feigns disengagement, which is one of his preferred modes here. Yorke has carved out a niche for himself as a non-celebrity star in a media world saturated by non-star celebrities, which is commendable. But, it's hard to say where that leaves the rest of the dudes in Radiohead. Or, for that matter, the guys who comprise Atoms For Peace.