Thom Yorke on YouTube

Posted by Peter F on July 16 2006 in Design Music. There are 14 comments. Add yours!

Thom Yorke’s new album Eraser is a masterpiece. Easily better than Hail to the Theif, it’s Yorke at his most creative and expressive in years.

I’m a rabid fan of Radiohead, so I make the following statement with great care: I think Yorke’s genius comes through more clearly in this solo project. It’s an album to listen to again and again – it’s great in the background while working, and better on the headphones for careful listening. This is art served up for your ears.

You can get a taste of it in this video on YouTube.

As amazing as the work itself is, the process that Yorke went through developing the tracks is even more so. In essense, he cut found and created sounds together to create soundscapes in the studio. It was only much later that he developed the pieces into playable songs.

I’ve experimented with similar techniques of using random pieces and chaos to from the basis of a piece of art. The results were often quite staggering, and usually nothing like what I intented to create (which is ultimately the point). Starting with random or chaotic bits forces the thought process to take a back seat to feeling. It’s been ages since I have though, and right now I’m frightfully inspired to try it out again.