The Eraser is the debut solo album by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 10 July 2006 through XL Recordings. It was produced by Nigel Godrich, the longtime producer for Yorke's band Radiohead.
The Eraser was followed by a B-sides compilation EP, Spitting Feathers (2006), and a remix album, The Eraser Rmxs (2008). In 2009, to perform the Eraser material live, Yorke formed a new band, Atoms for Peace, with musicians including Godrich and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea.
Recording
In 2004, after finishing the tour for their sixth album, Hail to the Thief (2003),Radiohead went on hiatus. Radiohead's songwriter, Thom Yorke, began recording The Eraser, his first solo release, with Radiohead's producer, Nigel Godrich, in late 2004. Work continued throughout 2005 between Radiohead sessions.[1] The album was recorded in Radiohead's Oxford studio, Yorke's home, and Godrich's studio at the Hospital Club, London.[2]
Yorke, who formed Radiohead while the members were in school, said he was curious to try working alone.[3] The Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood said: "He had to get this stuff out, and everyone was happy [for Yorke to make it] ... He'd go mad if every time he wrote a song it had to go through the Radiohead consensus."[4] Godrich said that working with Yorke alone was more straightforward than working with Radiohead, as he did not have to manage the relationship between Yorke and the other band members.[5] On The Eraser, he and Yorke were able to "pull in the same direction".[5]
Yorke wanted to mainly use computers, but still have "life and energy" in the music.[6] To generate ideas, he cut and pasted clips at random from Radiohead's library of original samples,[6] many of which had been created on laptops in hotel rooms during Radiohead tours.[7] He sent fragments to Godrich, who identified passages that could become songs, edited them and returned them to Yorke.[7] Yorke gave the example of "Black Swan", which he said was a "nine-minute load of bollocks" until Godrich helped him edit it down. Godrich is also credited for extra instrumentation.[8]
To create the title track, Yorke sampled piano chords played by Greenwood and edited them into a new order.[1] "And it Rained All Night" contains a manipulated sample from the Hail to the Thief track "The Gloaming", and "Black Swan" samples a rhythm recorded by the Radiohead members Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway in 2000.[9] Yorke said "Harrowdown Hill" had existed during the Hail to the Thief sessions, but could not have worked as a Radiohead song.[10]
Yorke initially intended to create instrumental music,[6] but added vocals at Godrich's encouragement.[11] Godrich wanted Yorke's voice to be "dry and loud", without the reverb and other effects used on Radiohead records.[11] Yorke found it difficult to write lyrics to loops, saying he could not "react spontaneously and differently every time", so he translated the parts to guitar and piano and generated new elements in the process.[6]
One song recorded in the Eraser sessions, "Last Flowers", was released on the bonus disc of Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows (2007).[4] Another song, "The Hollow Earth", was finished later and released as a single in 2009.[12] In 2005, Yorke appeared on the web series From the Basement, performing songs including the Eraser track "Analyse".[13]
Music and lyrics
According to the Guardian, The Eraser features "skittery" and "pattery" beats and "minimal post-rockisms".[2] The LA Times wrote that it combined Yorke's laptop electronica with "soulful" political songs.[11]Pitchfork described it as "glitchy, sour, feminine, brooding".[14] Citing inspiration from the 1997 Björk album Homogenic, Yorke said The Eraser was designed to be heard in an "isolated space – on headphones, or stuck in traffic".[11] In 2019, Uproxx said it was Yorke's "most straightforward" solo album, "the frontman of a famous rock band essentially presenting his latest tunes in the guise of a singer-songwriter record".[15]
David Fricke of Rolling Stone felt the lyrics had an "emotional and pictorial directness" that was rare for Yorke.[1] "And It Rained All Night" and "Cymbal Rush" address climate change and cataclysmic floods.[16] The lines "No more going to the dark side with your flying saucer eyes / No more falling down a wormhole that I have to pull you out", from "Atoms for Peace", were inspired by an "admonition" from Yorke's partner, Rachel Owen.[17] The song title references a 1953 speech by the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower.[18]
According to The Globe and Mail, "The Clock", influenced by Arabic music, is a "gliding, droning song about losing control while pretending 'that you are still in charge'."[6] "Analyse" was inspired by a blackout Yorke experienced in his hometown, Oxford: "The houses were all dark, with candlelight in the windows, which is obviously how it would have been when they were built. It was beautiful."[1] The album title addresses the "elephants in the room" that "people are desperately trying to erase ... from public consciousness".[6]
Yorke wrote "Harrowdown Hill" about David Kelly, a whistleblower who died after telling a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Kelly's body was found in the Harrowdown Hill woods near Yorke's former school in Oxfordshire.[11] According to The Globe and Mail, the song resembles a love song with a sense of "menace" and "grim political showdown".[6] Yorke was uncomfortable about the subject matter and conscious of Kelly's grieving family, but felt that "not to write it would perhaps have been worse".[6] He described it as the angriest song he had ever written.[19]
Artwork
Part of London Views, the album artwork created by Stanley Donwood.
Donwood said: "There was something about this immense torrent washing everything away and the futile figure holding back the wave (or failing to) that worked with the record, especially as we had both seen the flood, just when Thom was starting on the music."[21] He also felt The Eraser was a "very English record", and that the London imagery fit this.[21] The album is packaged as a large foldout containing the CD, as Donwood and Yorke wanted to avoid using plastic.[22]
Release
On 11 May 2006, Yorke posted a link to the official Eraser site on the Radiohead website. Two days later, he wrote in a press release: "I have been itching to do something like this for ages. It was fun and quick to do ... Yes, it's a record! No, it's not a Radiohead record."[23] He emphasised that Radiohead were not splitting up and that the album was made "with their blessing".[23] Before the release, "Black Swan" was used in the closing credits of the film A Scanner Darkly.[24]
The Eraser was released on 11 July 2006[23] by the independent label XL Recordings on CD and vinyl.[25] Yorke said he chose XL because "it's very mellow. There's no corporate ethic. [Major labels are] stupid little boys' games – especially really high up."[3] The album was also released on iTunes.[25] It was leaked online a month before release; Yorke said he regretted not releasing it as a download beforehand.[26]
The Eraser debuted at number three in the UK Albums Chart and stayed in the top 100 for ten weeks.[27] In the United States, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling more than 90,000 copies in its first week.[28] "Harrowdown Hill" was released as a single on 21 August, reaching number 23 on the UK Singles Chart,[29] followed by "Analyse" on 6 November.[30]The Eraser was followed by a compilation of B-sides, Spitting Feathers,[31] and a 2008 album of remixes by various artists, The Eraser Rmxs.[32]
In July 2009,[33] Yorke performed solo at Latitude Festival and found it was possible to perform Eraser songs on acoustic instruments. He contacted Godrich with the idea of forming a band to perform The Eraser without sequencers, reproducing the electronic beats with Latin percussion.[34] They formed a new band, Atoms for Peace, with musicians including the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. The band performed eight North American shows in 2010, and released an album, Amok, in 2013.[35]
On the review aggregator site Metacritic, The Eraser has a score of 76/100, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[36] In NME, Louis Patterson praised Yorke's vocals and wrote: "Some will mourn its lack of viscera; its coldness; its reluctance to rock. But it's yet another revealing glimpse into Yorke's cryptic inner-world, and one that has the courage not to hide its political message in code."[46]Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone said: "These aren't Radiohead songs, or demos for Radiohead songs. They're something different, something we haven't heard before ... It's intensely beautiful, yet it explores the kind of emotional turmoil that makes the angst of [Radiohead albums] OK Computer or The Bends sound like kid stuff."[43]PopMatters wrote: "The Eraser isn't a masterpiece, but it's much more than solo-project divergence. Yorke has stayed focused and created a tight album that draws on its predecessors without being held to or afraid of them."[47]
In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis wrote that The Eraser "offers a plethora of low-key delights", but "you can't help imagining what it might have sounded like if Yorke had turned it over to Radiohead".[40]The Village Voice praised Yorke's vocals, but found that "without the hooks of his inspirations or [Radiohead's] density, the results offer pleasantries where they could provoke profound unpleasantries".[48]Pitchfork wrote that The Eraser is "strikingly beautiful and thuddingly boring in maddeningly equal measure".[14] Writing in MSN Music, Robert Christgau found the themes "overstated" and the music "tastefully decorated click-and-loop".[41] In 2019, Uproxx named it Yorke's best solo album, saying it "comes closest to having the heft of an actual Radiohead album ... Many of these tracks are as memorable as anything that Radiohead put out at around the same time."[15]
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. They comprise Thom Yorke ; brothers Jonny Greenwood and Colin Greenwood (bass); Ed O'Brien ; and Philip Selway. They have worked with producer Nigel Godrich and cover artist Stanley Donwood since 1994. Radiohead's experimental approach is credited with advancing the sound of alternative rock.
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 2 October 2000 by Parlophone. It was recorded with their producer, Nigel Godrich, in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.
Amnesiac is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 30 May 2001 by EMI. It was recorded with the producer Nigel Godrich in the same sessions as Radiohead's previous album Kid A (2000). Radiohead split the work in two as they felt it was too dense for a double album. As with Kid A, Amnesiac incorporates influences from electronic music, 20th-century classical music, jazz and krautrock. The final track, "Life in a Glasshouse", is a collaboration with the jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band.
The Bends is the second studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 13 March 1995 by Parlophone. It was produced by John Leckie, with extra production by Radiohead, Nigel Godrich and Jim Warren. The Bends combines guitar songs and ballads, with more restrained arrangements and cryptic lyrics than Radiohead's debut album, Pablo Honey (1993).
Hail to the Thief is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released on 9 June 2003 through Parlophone internationally and a day later through Capitol Records in the United States. It was the last album released under Radiohead's record contract with EMI, the parent company of Parlophone and Capitol.
Thomas Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the main vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Radiohead. A multi-instrumentalist, he mainly plays guitar and keyboards and is noted for his falsetto. He has been described by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest and most influential singers of his generation.
Dan Rickwood, known professionally as Stanley Donwood, is an English artist and writer. Since 1994, he has created all the artwork for the rock band Radiohead with their singer, Thom Yorke, plus Yorke's other projects, including Atoms for Peace and the Smile. He also creates artwork for Glastonbury Festival and has published books of writing.
"Harrowdown Hill" is a song by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 21 August 2006 as the first single from his debut solo album, The Eraser. Yorke wrote it about the death of David Kelly, a British weapons expert who told a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "Harrowdown Hill" reached number 23 on the UK Singles Chart. A music video was released on 31 July 2006.
In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was self-released on 10 October 2007 as a pay-what-you-want download, followed by a physical release internationally through XL Recordings on 3 December 2007 and in North America through TBD Records on 1 January 2008. It was Radiohead's first release after their recording contract with EMI ended with their album Hail to the Thief (2003).
The English musician Thom Yorke has released three studio albums, one soundtrack album, three EPs, one remix album and 16 singles. The frontman of the alternative rock band Radiohead since 1985, Yorke's first singles as a solo artist were as a featured vocalist on the singles "El President" by Drugstore and "Rabbit in Your Headlights" by Unkle.
Atoms for Peace were a rock supergroup comprising the Radiohead songwriter Thom Yorke, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich, the drummer Joey Waronker of Beck and R.E.M., and the percussionist Mauro Refosco.
The King of Limbs is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was self-released on 18 February 2011 as a download, followed by a physical release on 28 March through XL Recordings internationally and TBD Records in North America.
Amok is the only album by the supergroup Atoms for Peace, released on February 25, 2013 by XL Recordings. It features the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, the Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, the drummer Joey Waronker and the percussionist Mauro Refosco. It combines electronic and live instrumentation.
Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is the second studio album by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 26 September 2014. It was produced by Nigel Godrich, with artwork by Stanley Donwood, both of whom have long collaborated with Yorke and his band Radiohead. The album blends Yorke's vocals and piano playing with electronic beats and textures.
A Moon Shaped Pool is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released digitally on 8 May 2016, with a retail release on 17 June 2016 through XL Recordings. It was produced by Radiohead's longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich.
Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) is the soundtrack for the 2018 horror film Suspiria, composed by the English musician Thom Yorke and produced by Yorke and Sam Petts-Davies. It was released on 26 October 2018 through XL Recordings.
Anima is the third studio album by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 27 June 2019 through XL Recordings. It was produced by Yorke's longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich.
The Smile are an English rock band comprising the Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood with Tom Skinner (drums). Critics likened them to Radiohead, with more jazz, krautrock and progressive rock influences and a looser, wilder sound.
Kid A Mnesia is a reissue compiling the albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) by the English rock band Radiohead. It also includes a bonus disc, Kid Amnesiae, comprising previously unreleased material. It was released on 5 November 2021 on XL Recordings.
A Light for Attracting Attention is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Smile. It was released digitally through XL Recordings on 13 May 2022, with a physical release on 17 June.
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