“Being in a place you can’t leave, makes you value your freedom more. [Now] I mostly dream that I’m on the space station. Some dreams are on Earth, but those are rare.”
-Astronaut Scott Kelly. Tweeted September 19th 2015, having spent more than six consecutive months on the international space station”.
Like most space voyages, Radiohead’s 9th L.P. A Moon Shaped Pool starts out briefly on planet earth, but only for the album opener and debut single, “Burn the Witch” which grabs a bouncy Coldplay Viva la Vida string section and proceeds to warp it, reverse it, and layer it over smoky computerized beats like its the late hip hop innovator D.J. Screw. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke mutters the most memorable phrase of the album “…a low flying panic attack” which, as a past sufferer of Panic disorder, sounds extra terrifying but oh so very accurate: those damn things swoop out of nowhere. As the opener’s closing strings are ejected into the upper atmosphere, we are slingshot for track 2 into outer space, where we will remain for the rest of the album.
Daydreaming, is a true return to form for Radiohead. Many feel Yorke had forfeited that depressing, cold, yet so keenly introspective haunt in recent albums for the sake of experimentation and new artistic directions, but Daydreaming brings it back full circle, sounding like an orphaned track from 1997’s OK Computer. Like the limitless expanse of our interstellar neighborhood, Daydreaming is cold, sterile, and depressurized. Yorke mentions a “white room, by window..where the sun goes through” which to many, might sound like an Air B&B at a psychiatric unit. I, however, envision being trapped on a sterile white space station, staring disembodied as swirling galaxies pass me by.
Things then proceed to get more and more…er… spacey. On Deck’s Dark, Yorke warns, “there comes a darkness, and a spacecraft blocking out the sky…”; or on The Numbers, “See the moon smiling..open on all channels, ready to receive.” But its not just the lyrics, which as usual, are sparse and sometimes nonsensical. Radiohead borrows a page from the great ambient producer Brian Eno, by utilizing undeniably “spacey noises”, glassy piano riffs, jingly chimes, and droning synths, to add atmosphere and foreboding suspense to the tracks Ful Stop, Glass Eyes, and The Numbers.
Identikit and True Love Waits are the most by the numbers Radiohead tracks on Moon Shaped Pool, the former a frantic mid-tempo rocker, and the latter a lullaby by Radiohead standards, which still means its fraught with crippling catatonia. Its a wonderful addition to a growing discography that is so melancholy, it rivals The Smashing Pumpkins.
Desert Island Disk is easily the album’s strongest track, Yorke temporarily parks the space shuttle on an empty desert planet to deliver a dressed down acoustic jam that’s comforting as it is desolate.
I found an odd similarity, both in instrumentation and lyricism between Moon Shaped Pool, and another cosmonaut’s final log this year, David Bowie’s Blackstar. Both of these albums channeled self-contemplation out in the deep cosmos. Both albums tip their hat to nihilism, suggesting it might be best to accept things that are simply innevitable. Perhaps its the biological continuation of our own life (unavoidable in Bowie’s case), or accepting the terminal trajectories of others around us, whether they too succumb to sickness or death, or simply make a decision that means they will no longer be in our lives anymore (which really never hurts any less).
While Bowie’s Blackstar was able to aim outwards at our society’s ills, Yorke and Radiohead, has and always will, aim inwards Yorke sings on The Numbers:
“We are of the earth. To her we do return. The future is inside us. It’s not somewhere else”
This is what makes Radiohead’s music so universally loved. No,it would not be healthy psychological advice to suggest someone dwell on themselves with this much intensity or drown in their anxieties for this long, but for 50 minutes or so, Radiohead does a really good job at setting the background music for listeners to freak out a bit, and hit their introspective reset buttons.
– Chad R
Favorite Tracks:
Desert Island Disk, True Love Waits
Tones OF HOME 