Atoms For Peace (Radiohead): Amok (2LP) [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads the album over four sides cut at 45 RPM, with a download card in the sleeve. Amok reached the top ten in the UK, the US and Japan.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Cut at 45 RPM
• Download card included

About the album

Most side projects start with a few mates and a free weekend. This one started with a tour: Thom Yorke put a band together in 2009 to play his solo album The Eraser live, and the line-up was hard to argue with. Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, drummer Joey Waronker and percussionist Mauro Refosco. When the shows ended in 2010, they booked a Los Angeles studio and jammed for three days, bonding over a shared love of Fela Kuti and afrobeat.

Yorke described his role as conducting. He played the band the angular electronic tracks he'd made on his laptop, and they rebuilt them by hand. Yorke and Godrich then spent two years editing and arranging the results, folding live takes back into the machines. "Default" twitches and loops, "Ingenue" sways on a woozy groove, "Before Your Very Eyes..." opens the record with Flea and Refosco locked together, and "Judge Jury And Executioner" became a single in its own right.

The band took it around the world on an international tour. Yorke said he wanted a record where you couldn't quite tell where the human starts and the machine ends, and two years in the edit suite made sure nobody, the band included, can say for certain.

Also at Kops: more Atoms for Peace on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings (cat# XLLP583), the 2013 album.