Exploring Thom Yorke’s best work outside of Radiohead
Everybody loves Radiohead. The most critically acclaimed band in the known universe hasn’t been outside of archival releases for half a decade, but when they do return, they’ll be warmly greeted by their scores of fans across the globe. As they wait, fans will have to get to know the members’ work outside the band a little better.
Singer Thom Yorke had certainly kept busy outside of his day job. Frequent soundtrack jobs, solo projects, and new bands have emerged over the years, all of which find Yorke experimenting with different collaborators. Even with the diverse array of talent and eclectic mediums he finds himself in, there always seems to be a signature sound that Yorke gravitates towards.
The mix of electronic and acoustic instrumentation, paired with explorations around non-traditional song structures, was how Yorke pushed Radiohead into the future. He continued the trend outside of the band, favouring sprawling soundscapes and atypical approaches to composition to create sounds that could be eerie, engrossing, or highly danceable, depending on the project’s mood.
To celebrate his birthday, we’ve compiled six of Yorke’s most essential projects outside of Radiohead. Whether solo albums, soundtrack work, or completely separate bands, Yorke has plenty of material outside his most-famous band to get lost in. Here is Yorke’s best work outside of Radiohead.
Thom Yorke’s best work outside of Radiohead:
The Eraser
First up is Yorke’s debut solo album, The Eraser. Released in 2006, it was the first real extended piece of work that Yorke had done outside of Radiohead. Mixing jazzy instrumentation with a pronounced electronica feel, The Eraser was a logical extension of Yorke’s sparse work on albums like Kid A and foreshadowed some later Radiohead material on The King of Limbs.
Less exploratory and more straightforward than some of his Radiohead material, The Eraser is a wonderful way to hear what Yorke’s direction and contributions are compared to his bandmates. Tracks like ‘Black Swan’ and ‘And It Rained All Night’ showed that Yorke has secretly wanted to be a DJ for a while.
‘I’ve Seen It All’
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Björk and Thom Yorke were two of the biggest musicians pushing rock and pop music into the future. Both were embracing new technologies and more electronic-based instrumentation as the new millennium approached, so it almost seemed inevitable that they would eventually collaborate.
“We’ve known about each other for a while. [We were] always just about to do something together, and we were just waiting for the right situation,” Björk revealed to MTV in 2001. “I was really excited about this song; I thought that I finally had a song that deserved his voice, ’cause he’s definitely my favourite male singer in the world.” The results, unsurprisingly, are sublime.
Atoms for Peace
When Thom Yorke was booked to play a solo show in 2009, he wanted to recreate the sequencers and electronic sounds of The Eraser using acoustic instruments. He contacted longtime producer Nigel Godrich, who quickly assembled an all-star cast of backing musicians, including Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Beck drummer Joey Waronker, and David Byrne percussionist Mauro Refosco.
Although they were initially formed to back up Yorke’s Eraser songs, Atoms for Peace soon blossomed into their own world, producing a full-length LP, Amok, in 2013. With an added layer of funk and alt-rock, Atoms for Peace edged Yorke into unfamiliar territory.
Suspiria
Yorke never seemed interested in creating film music. His Radiohead bandmate, Jonny Greenwood, certainly did. But Yorke had been reluctant in the past, declining an offer from director David Fincher to create the score for Fight Club. Yorke declined the initial offer to score the 1977 horror classic Suspiria remake.
But director Luca Guadagnino was persistent, and Yorke finally agreed. It’s a good thing he did: the soundtrack to Suspiria might just be the most hauntingly beautiful music Yorke has ever produced. Largely confining himself to the piano, Yorke layered in white noise and samples to give the music its appropriately eerie feeling.
The Smile
Fans had been eagerly awaiting a new Radiohead album since the release of their most recent effort, 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. So when Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood announced that they would be releasing new music in 2022, fans couldn’t believe their luck. A new Radiohead album! Right?
Wrong: Yorke and Greenwood instead teamed up with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner for a wonky new alternative rock band, The Smile. The group sees Yorke and Greenwood returning somewhat to their guitar-rock origins, but there’s plenty of experimentation and electronica to make The Smile a signature Yorke side project.
Anima
In order to free himself of the writer’s block that he had been experiencing for an extended period of time, Yorke decided that his third solo album Anima would be the most experimental of his entire career. Heavily electronic, woozy, and damn-near dystopian in tone, Anima is as dark and unconventional as Yorke has ever been on record.
It’s also some of his most fascinating work, with old-school keyboards rubbing elbows with futuristic production styles. Fans may be clamouring to hear the next Radiohead album, but Anima proved that Yorke was continuing to evolve in exciting ways, with or without his famous band behind him.
