Thom Yorke + Atoms for Peace 24 Bit Vinyl Pack

Thom Yorke + Atoms for Peace 24 Bit Vinyl Pack

Genre: Electronic
Style: Experimental
Source: vinyl
Codec: FLAC
Bit Rate: 3,000 kbps
Bit Depth: 24
Sampling Rate: 96,000 Hz

2006 The Eraser
2006 Harrowdown Hill (12" Single)
2009 All for the Best / Ciao My Shining Star (7")
2013 Amok

Thom Yorke bio:

Few rock singers of the '90s were as original and instantly unforgettable as Thom Yorke, as his band, Radiohead, became one of the biggest bands of the 21st century after making a career out of specializing in challenging and unpredictable rock. Born October 7, 1968, in Wellingborough, England, Yorke was born with a vision ailment: his left eye was paralyzed and shut until the age of six. He underwent a total of five operations; the last operation was botched and he almost lost all sight out of that eye (only after wearing an eye patch for a year was he able to see, albeit slightly). His family moved often since his father worked as a chemical engineering instruments salesman, and by his teens, he had turned to music as an inspiration, namely Elvis Costello, Queen, and the Beatles. After his family finally settled down in Oxford, Yorke was sent to an all-boys school, where he first met future Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien and bassist Colin Greenwood, soon after discovering such '80s alternative bands as the Smiths, R.E.M., and the Cure. The seeds of what would eventually become Radiohead were planted at this point, as the trio jammed with a drum machine before replacing it with another friend, drummer Phil Selway, and inviting Greenwood's younger multi-instrument playing brother Jonny to join up, too.

The group's original name was On a Friday, before being changed to Radiohead, which they'd swiped from the title of a song on Talking Heads' True Stories. By late 1991, the band was signed to Parlophone in the U.K. and Capitol in the U.S., as an EP, "Drill," came and went without much fanfare. 1993's full-length debut, Pablo Honey, appeared to be suffering the same fate, until American radio/MTV made a surprise hit out of the Nirvana-esque alt-anthem "Creep." The band's fan base grew considerably over the course of their next two releases, 1995's The Bends and 1997's OK Computer, the latter being voted Greatest Album of All Time in the British magazine Q shortly after its release. One of the world's top rock bands by this time, the group attempted to alienate their newly found Top 40 audience with their next release, 2000's abstract Kid A, but instead found it debuting at the top of the U.S. charts (despite the absence of a video or single being released from the album).

While Radiohead remains his top priority, Yorke has also found the time to guest on other band's recordings as well. Some of these "cameo" appearances include the songs "El President" by Drugstore (off the album White Magic for Lovers), a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" with Sparklehorse, "Rabbit in Your Headlights" by UNKLE (Psyence Fiction), Björk's "I've Seen It All" (Selmasongs), and PJ Harvey's "This Mess We're In" (Stories from the Cities). Yorke has also appeared as part of the ad hoc alternative supergroup Venus in Furs for the soundtrack to the 1998 glam rock film Velvet Goldmine, lending his vocals to the tracks "2HB," "Ladytron," and "Bitter-Sweet." In May 2006, he unleashed a surprise by announcing an imminent solo album on Radiohead's weblog. The Eraser, made with extensive assistance from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, was released on XL in July.

The Eraser review:

The Eraser, Thom Yorke's first album away from Radiohead, is intensely focused and steady. It doesn't have the dynamics -- the shifts of mood, tempo, volume -- held by any Radiohead album, and it's predominantly electronic, so it's bound to rankle many of the fans who thought Kid A was too unhinged from rock & roll. It's definitely not the kind of album you put on to get an instant shot of energy, and at the same time, it doesn't contain anything as sullen as "How to Disappear Completely." Since it is so balanced, it might initially seem unwavering, but the details that differentiate the songs become increasingly apparent with each successive listen. Despite a reliance on machine beats and synthetic textures, Yorke's untouched, upfront vocals and relatively straightforward lyrics should be enough to bring back some of the detractors; he would have no trouble taking these songs on the road with a piano and an acoustic guitar. "Black Swan," the standout, comes across as a less guitar-heavy and more subdued version of Amnesiac's "I Might Be Wrong." Peek beneath the surface and you'll see that there's a lot more seething involved: "You have tried your best to please everyone/But it just isn't happening/No, it just isn't happening/And it's f*cked up, f*cked up."

The opener, the title track, asks the album's first set of probing questions, including "Are you only being nice because you want something?" Along with the thoroughly sweet "Atoms for Peace," it vies for the album's prettiest-sounding five minutes, elevating into a chorus of hovering sighs as Yorke projects lightly with a matter-of-fact tone, "The more I try to erase you, the more, the more, the more that you appear." On the explicitly political end is "Harrowdown Hill," anchored by a snapping bass riff and percussive accents that skitter and slide back and forth between the left and right channels. Yorke defeatedly states, "You will be dispensed with when you become inconvenient," and asks "Did I fall or was I pushed?" referring to Dr. David Kelly, a whistle-blowing U.N. weapons inspector whose death -- which took place following a sequence of events that led to a testimonial before a parliamentary committee -- was ruled a suicide. It's no shock that the album entails some heavy subject matter and sounds as close to a version of Radiohead minus four of its members as one can imagine. What distinguishes The Eraser from the Radiohead albums, beyond the aspects mentioned above, is its ability to function in the background or as light listening without the requirement of deep concentration. The constant stream of soft, intricately layered sounds, while not without a great deal of tension in most spots, can be very comforting. Yorke's assertion that the album isn't truly a solo release is accurate. Producer Nigel Godrich, whose relationship with Radiohead exceeds a decade, played a major role, contributing arrangements, "extra instruments," and enough influence to guide the album into its tight song-oriented structure. Without him, the well-executed album would've likely sounded a lot closer to the kind of stray-idea patchwork experiment that so many other long-boiling side projects resemble. And, to a somewhat lesser extent, Yorke needed his bandmates as well; some of the sounds were pulled and manipulated from a bank of the band's unused recordings.

Atoms for Peace bio:

The nameless lineup that became Atoms for Peace made its public debut at Los Angeles, California's Echoplex on October 2, 2009. Thom Yorke, joined by longtime Radiohead associate Nigel Godrich (Ultraísta) and Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), as well as session veterans Joey Waronker (also of Ultraísta) and Mauro Refosco (Forro in the Dark), performed the entirety of Yorke's 2006 album The Eraser and some fresh material, including a song titled "Judge Jury and Executioner." Additional Los Angeles dates, a brief tour across the U.S., and an appearance at Coachella followed through 2010. By that point, they had named themselves Atoms for Peace -- the title of a track from The Eraser, named after a 1953 speech delivered by then-U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The first release to bear their name was a 300-copy 12" on the 50 Weapons label, released in July 2012; an Atoms for Peace remix of Other Lives' "Tamer Animals" appeared on the A-side, while the group's own "Other Side [Stuck Together Mix]" was on the B-side. Their first true single, "Default," followed that November on XL, with its parent album, the subdued yet rhythmically knotty Amok (including "Judge Jury and Executioner"), issued the following February.

Amok review:

Thom Yorke's Atoms for Peace involves longtime Radiohead engineer/producer Nigel Godrich (Ultraísta) and bassist Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), as well as two session veterans in drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M., Ultraísta) and percussionist Mauro Refosco (Forro in the Dark). For their first public performance, back in 2009, they performed Yorke's Godrich-assisted 2006 album The Eraser in its entirety, as well as some fresh material. Over three years later, they've come up with this, a product of jam sessions formed -- by Yorke and Godrich -- into a uniform nine-track album. It sounds more like a fleshier successor to Yorke's first solo album than it does a first step, and it's presented that way, from Stanley Donwood's woodcut illustrations to the band's name -- the same as a track title on The Eraser. Due to the nature of the recording process, the material is more about sounds -- rippling rhythms, more specifically -- than songs. Attempting to discern the organic from the mutated and the processed is a fool's errand yet part of the appeal. Listeners will be either unnerved or fascinated by the use of Flea's low-throbbing lines, which add warmth, rarely propel, and are sometimes obscured beneath piles of shifting percussion. Given all the thick layering of sounds, Yorke's words -- normally enunciated and mixed in such a way to enable transcription with only a slight headache as a reward -- tend to act as another element rather than as a focal point. The lyrics probably weren't written at the bassist's house after some drunken pool playing. They're in typical Yorke character, consisting of vaguely conveyed altercations and conflicts: "You got me into this mess," "I couldn't care less," "But it's eating me up," "They try to jump me," "Go back to where you came from," "I'm like the wind and my anger will disperse." In other words, this is another Thom Yorke solo album, and it sounds really nice on decent headphones.