The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention (2LP) [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket with printed lyric inner sleeves. The album reached No. 5 in the UK, and Pitchfork gave it Best New Music, calling it the best album yet by a Radiohead side project.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeves with lyrics

About the album

The Smile started as a lockdown project and turned into a proper band. Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood teamed up with Tom Skinner, formerly of Sons of Kemet, made a surprise debut on Glastonbury's livestream in May 2021, and had longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on hand to record the album in London at Wack Formula and Air Edel.

The songs pull in post-punk, Afrobeat, jazz, prog and electronica, with Skinner's drumming giving Greenwood's guitar and bass room to wriggle. "You Will Never Work in Television Again" is a ferocious blast, "The Smoke" grooves, "Pana-vision" turned up in the Peaky Blinders finale, and "Skrting on the Surface" and "Open the Floodgates" are songs Yorke had carried around since 2009. Yorke painted the cover with Stanley Donwood in his garden shed, working in gouache on canvas and drawing on early maps of the British Isles that charted springs and rivers.

Yorke recorded his vocals at home over the internet, wrapping up each day before his kids got back from school. Parents everywhere will recognize the deadline.

Also at Kops: more The Smile on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings, a reissue of the 2022 album.