Colin Greenwood set to release photography book of Radiohead’s “middle years”
Before Radiohead became one of the biggest bands in the world, they were a group of school kids from Oxford rehearsing under the name On A Friday. Within a few years, however, they would adopt a new name and release the hit single ‘Creep’, an unforgettable slice of 1990s alt-rock.
This led Radiohead to release their debut album, Pablo Honey, which received mixed reviews – maybe the band weren’t as cut out for success as ‘Creep’ suggested. Luckily, their sophomore effort, The Bends, fared much better, spawning popular tracks such as ‘High and Dry’ and ‘Fake Plastic Trees’.
The band rounded off the decade with OK Computer, a seminal release that encapsulated feelings of fear and disillusionment in reference to capitalism, rapid consumerism, technology and political discontent.
The 2000s saw Radiohead experiment considerably more than the previous decade, bringing influences such as electronica, ambient, and free jazz into their sound on albums like Kid A, In Rainbows and The King of Limbs.
The band’s bassist, Colin Greenwood, calls this era Radiohead’s “middle years.” He’s just announced a photography book, How To Disappear: A History of Radiohead, which documents this period.
The photos were taken between 2003 and 2016, reflecting “all the joy and doubt and confidence and uncertainty we would oscillate between.”
Discussing the upcoming book, which will be available on October 15th, Greenwood said in a press release, “I’ve tried to catch out my friends with my small black Yashica T4 Super. On stage and in the rehearsal studio, they are so lost in their own moment of performance that they don’t see me with the camera.”
This period spans albums from Hail To the Thief to A Moon Shaped Pool, their most recent album. Greenwood’s snaps provide an intimate look at the band as they created and performed songs that have cemented them as one of music’s most important groups of the past 30 years.
Taking to Instagram, he also revealed that he has “written an essay that attempts to thread these pictures together into a portrait of my band from its less certain middle years to now.”
The book is now available for pre-order in several different editions. Superfans can get their hands on a signed deluxe edition, which comes with an additional display of ‘light show’ photographs.
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