Robert Stillman and The Smile
The Ryman Auditorium // Nashville, TN // December 3rd, 2022
Photos by Kendra Petersen Kamp // Review by Jordan Petersen Kamp
Robert Stillman
The Smile
In what is now the start of their fourth decade together as creative partners, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood—interlinked most famously in the band Radiohead—have begun a new band. Together with drummer Tom Skinner, Yorke and Greenwood released their new album A Light for Attracting Attention in May of 2022 under the name The Smile. The trio is currently on their first North American tour together, which stopped at the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee on December 3, 2022.
A Light for Attracting Attention did not exactly shock listeners familiar with Radiohead—it’s the thing released by either Yorke or Greenwood that most resembles Radiohead without actually bearing its name. Trimmed-down to just two of its members and adding Skinner— who comes from London’s jazz scene—The Smile’s debut is a little leaner and looser than a typical Radiohead album. But the seamless integration of electronic and rock music with frequently off-kilter time signatures and Greenwood’s lush orchestration on A Light for Attracting Attention are not much further than stone’s throw into a moon-shaped pool away from a late-career Radiohead album.
In a live setting, The Smile’s concision speaks louder than it does on record. The album features some of the most confounding and kinetic arrangements Yorke and Greenwood have written together in years. It’s a massive level of effort and skill required to bring a song like the sinewy “Thing Thing”—which Yorke introduced as a “monster”—to life with just three people, and yet The Smile tore through this and numerous other numbers with all three members occupying the maximum space possible within each song.
The band feels like a true collaboration with all three members. Yorke’s tendency towards chilly synth driven arrangements found a home in songs like “The Same” and “Waving a White Flag” and Greenwood’s guitar-led songs—namely “The Opposite” and “The Smoke”—trended into Fela Kuti and afrobeat inspired grooves. Tom Skinner’s creative voice was felt most acutely in the unreleased material the band have been playing this tour, four of which appeared in Nashville. My theory is Skinner has Yorke and Greenwood letting their freak-flag fly a little freer, as these new songs lean more psychedelic and heavy than Radiohead would let itself be and Skinner’s experience as a jazz drummer takes a more prominent role than it did on the first batch of songs.
The Smile does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon, which may add fuel to already burning questions as to the state of Radiohead. But if any eager Radiohead fan sees The Smile and the level of creativity and purpose Yorke and Greenwood are still finding with one another and their new collaborator, I’ll bet they would have a hard time being disappointed that this is how they are spending their time. “We’re a new band, we’re making new shit,” Yorke said before playing the unreleased “Colours Fly,” and after the band’s hour-and-a-half showcase at the Ryman, that felt exactly right.
