14. Amok / Atoms for Peace

Thom Yorke indulges his love for twitchy EDM and brooding dubstep on Amok.  He convinces his super-bandmates Flea and Nigel Godrich to drive at an insular sound that never escapes its own orbit, a tightly-wound and funky instrumental coil that never expands enough to collapse on itself.  Atoms for Peace are, after all, against going nuclear.

The record serves as a bookend to Yorke's lone solo album, 2006's The Eraser, an underrated performance of spare electronica.  Wanting to play tracks from The Eraser in a live setting, Yorke reached out to his friends Flea, long-time Radiohead producer Godrich, Joey Waronker (drums for Beck and R.E.M) and Brazillian instrumentalist Mauro Refosco, which eventually led to the recording of Amok.  Largely due to Godrich's field-of-depth production skills, Flea's typical bass funk, and Waronker's and Refosco's creative rhythms, the skittering beats are more forceful and abundant, and Amok is a notch better than The Eraser.  

During the band's recent arena tour, they played numerous tracks from both albums, and the live performances were surprisingly pliant and energizing.  The only complaint may be that Flea was not left to wander further afield on the studio versions, as there are moments where the tracks could have opened up to allow more theatrics, especially when compared with the more accomodating live approach.  But we did see Yorke get his swerve on.  Though his guitar-work is interesting throughout and his trademark vocals float across the soundtrack, haunted and disembodied, we really just want to see him dance.  When the the ponytail is long and the dancing is loose, you know that a great Radiohead record is just around the corner.