With The Smile, their new project, the singer and guitarist of Radiohead seem to have chosen to experiment in complete freedom, without having to bear the cumbersome weight of the name of their flagship and the expectations that come with it. As a trio, with jazz drummer Tom Skinner, from the Sons of Kemet group, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are more mobile and can, for example, perform without risk of a stir in more modest venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris (3600 seats) last week (June 6 and 7), at the opening of the Days Off festival.
But we can baptize ourselves The Smile (The Smile), we do not redo. Born during confinement, because Thom and Jonny wanted to finish a few songs together, The Smile did not suddenly transform the two geniuses of Radiohead into merry men. Not tomorrow the day before that the lively flayed Thom Yorke and the shy Jonny Greenwood will offer euphoric music. The Smile is also not to be understood as a smile of delight but “more like the smile of the guy who lies to you every day“, specifies Thom Yorke.
The music of these two research heads resembles above all an experimental laboratory, and more on stage than on disc – the album A Light For Attracting Attention released on May 13 – as we quickly see at the Philharmonie. In concert, devoid of the string parts of the contemporary orchestra of London which majestically dress the album, the songs appear more raw, in all their nudity and their architectural audacity. As for the horn section of the disc, it is partly compensated by the saxophonist Robert Stillman, seen in the first part.
This Tuesday, June 7, the trio, who had until then often played their album more or less in order, decided to start with the delicate Pana Visionless leaded than the powerful The Same with which the disc begins. Thom settles down at the piano, and Jonny is in the background on bass, just like the drummer, rather discreet, whose supple touch we notice. From the second title, the tempo seriously gets carried away with Thin Thing for which Thom switches to bass as Jonny grabs a guitar. The title has a very cinematic acceleration, like a car chase. Impossible not to think about the fact that Jonny has become an ace in the composition of film music.
Throughout the concert, the latter is simply dazzling. Firstly because as an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, Jonny Greenwood alternately plays guitar, bass, synths, piano and harp, and even the last two at the same time (one hand for each!) on the splendid Speech Bubbles. But above all because he shows incredible creativity with his guitar. As if he wanted to extract all the resources from it, he considers his six strings from all angles, clamps it like a double bass, plays it with a bow like Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, makes it abrasive or makes it sound like an African kora . All this without ostentation, and as usual, her gaze constantly hidden by the hair curtain of her long black bangs.
Thom Yorke is not to be outdone, also regularly changing instruments – bass, guitar, pianos – during the 85 minutes of the show, but he is particularly inventive in the instrument of choice which is his voice. He plays it on all registers: angelic, heartbreaking, haunted or surly, with varied phrasings, and sometimes a lot of echo. It is strangely reminiscent of Neil Young on certain titles (the poignant Free in the Knowledge notably) and remains inhabited and overwhelming even when she stumbles. As for his songs, they resemble bottles thrown into the sea in the middle of a storm. Except that they do not call for help, aware that it is already too late. They note, painfully or furiously, the state of the world and its coming finitude.
Because the album is not long enough to hold a whole concert, the group plays unreleased tracks (Bodies laughing, Friend of a friend, Just Eyes and Mouth) and that evening even offers the Parisian public the world premiere of Color Fly – “We try it on stage for the first time, we’ll see if it works“, announces the singer.
It’s a title that begins with an almost oriental guitar motif that turns into a sandstorm in which Robert Stillman’s saxophone seems to be lost, while Thom sings a ahhhhh constant who could be a Buddhist aum. A convincing although free track, very krautrock, reminiscent of Can’s experiments. And demonstrates that the discreet Tom Skinner is an outstanding drummer capable of ensuring with elegance and flexibility the pinhead turns and the most audacious accelerations of the formation.
One thing is certain, The Smile is much more rock than Radiohead’s last album, the sublime A Moon Shaped Pool released in 2016. There is rock, post-rock and krautrock in this group, and even punk with the formidable brulôt révolté You Will Not Work On Television Again, struck angrily in the closing before the reminder. There is jazz (Friend of a friend) and groove too (Bodies Laughing, The Smoke) in The Smile, less cerebral than the public imagines, who listen to him religiously instead of, sometimes, letting themselves go dancing like Thom Yorke does.
Nothing, however, that could not come out of the thigh of Radiohead, whose shadow is so powerful here that one comes to doubt its durability – after the various solo projects of Thom Yorke and the multiplication of excellent film scores by Jonny Greenwood, is The Smile just a recreation without a future or does it announce a slow agony of Radiohead, which has not released an album for six years? Let us rejoice in any case that these two, a rare case in the history of rock, do not fall asleep on their laurels, flee repetition and self-parody to advance the music ever further.
The Smile is on tour
June 24 in Reims (Magnificent Society festival)
June 27 in Neumunster (Luxembourg)
July 11 in Nîmes (Festival of Nîmes)
July 12 in Montreux (Montreux Jazz Festival)
The Scrapbook A Light For Attracting Attention (XL Recordings/Beggars) was released on May 13