RADIOHEAD | KID A
The utterly brilliant fourth release from Radiohead was their foray into completely new musical territory. As the stress from following up Ok Computer mounted, Thom Yorke wanted to completely abandon conventional rock music. Drawing from electronic, ambient, krautrock, jazz, and classical music, Kid A was a successful experiment in creative boundary pushing.
Muted electronic hums, pulses, and tones blip and bleep across the album. Vocal distortions create confusion and many songs lack guitar entirely. This was a jump into the abyss of potential commercial suicide that proved the more uninhibited morbid self-indulgence we play with, the more incredible the results.
The reason Kid A is so well-received is because it didn’t completely abandon melody or accessibility, while giving off the illusion that it does. Songs like “How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found” are classic Radiohead, hitting the drippy melancholic nail right on the head. “Everything In It’s Right Place” might have thrown fans for a (literal) loop upon first plunk of its electronic keyboard, but it’s just as catchy as anything they’ve ever recorded. The trick is in dressing the musical expressions in new clothes and re-sewiing to become something foreign yet pleasing to our ears.
The tones and shapes of the instrumentation are both lush and futuristic, and timeless all at once. “Idioteque’s bit crushed two-step feels exciting but is still coated with an underlying apprehension. “The National Anthem” brings a Miles Davis-inspired brass section to collide with an overly simplistic diving baseline. The vocoder effect ghosting Thom’s voice on this track is a highlight on the album as it both perfectly robotic and dreadfully human.
The album was sighted by many as Radiohead being “difficult”, but really it is a new grocery box of ingredients Radiohead got to cook with. Kid A proved that Radiohead could do no wrong, and that they could still make a classic album even in abandoning everything they knew how to do. On every album the band relearns how to write, perform, and approach music. How many groups even bother to think about doing that, let alone achieve it?
The artwork plays a huge rolein the vibe of the LP, and is mysterious and off-putting. It was created by Yorke and Stanley Donwood to capture a strange manipulation of a nondescript mountain range. Its entire presence somehow manages to bring about a looming presence or danger just off in the distance. There are fires in the distances and digital art glitches in the foreground. In a way its hard to imagine any other suitable cover for the music within. What would have worked better, a photo of the band? Colourful photography? Hardly.
Closing the album is “Motion Picture Soundtrack” which elegantly sprinkles in a string orchestra and a 1950’s angelic choir. It is the ascension and peak of the album, the feeling of a soul rising to the heavens and looking down on the world below, preparing for the unfathomable enigma of what’s to come. It is the perfect closing note to a journey that plays out as one continuous experience. The after-effects that linger around this album can stay with the listener a lifetime. This hangover is created by Kid A’s foreignness, expansiveness, and mystification.
WALK THROUGH WALLS
2 oz whiskey
1 oz apple brandy
1 dash orange juice
1/2 lime juice
3/4 granadine
2 dashes of cherry bitters
2 oz club soda
*Pour all the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake well. Roll the contents into a rocks glass and top with the club soda.