Radiohead – Supercollider / The Butcher

Nice! An unsolicited email from Radiohead’s W.A.S.T.E. arrived this morning announcing “two tracks for your listening pleasure” which (it seemed at pains to point out) were “not part of a new loyalty points scheme, a Radiohead clubcard or even an air miles redeemable reward type thing... just a big old-fashioned thank you!”.

Supercollider and The Butcher were released on limited edition 12” vinyl (very limited - 2,000 copies only!) to mark Independent Record Store Day on Saturday April 16^th. In keeping with their rather singular approach to disseminating their music the band has opted out of reselling them in any form just yet (even the “pay what you like” approach used for In Rainbows) and instead mailed a completely gratis link to their subscribers – or, at least, those of us who’ve shelled out for the yet-to-be-received “Newspaper Album” version of The King of Limbs (previously reviewed here).

So what do we get? Actually, a couple of really good tracks.

Supercollider opens with a sharp, crisp electronic pulse-beat followed by a canon of swirling synths fading in to lay down the backdrop for a rather lovely melody. The lyrics are typically oblique (and hard to catch, if I’m honest!) but the theme seems to be about dust, particles, pixilations “in a blue light, in a green light, in a half light, in a work light”, building up to what sounds like Thom trying to convince us that he’s upbeat at the end (“I have jettisoned my illusions, I have dislodged my depressions, I put the shadows back into the boxes”) – I, for one, don’t buy it! This is a long (over 7 minutes) workout for a song that doesn’t adhere to a verse/chorus/middle-8 structure but it rides its time well; layer upon layer of instruments are added including (yes!) Jonny’s guitar. It all puts me in mind of the better moments from LDC Soundsytem’s This is Happening.

The Butcher is driven by a heavier marching drum loop and deep deep bass, along with creepy organ, wailing backing vocals and a far gloomier vocal – but it all works really well! Lyrically this is much darker territory – quite visceral horror, really: “Cut out, chop, liver on the block, my heart still pumping” ending with the frankly unnerving refrain “he's a warrior, warrior, he's a little bitch coming out of him”.

The email informed us that “The Butcher was recorded and mixed during The King of Limbs sessions but we couldn't make it work on the album; Supercollider was started during those sessions and finished off in March of this year”. It’s hard to see the logic in the former statement (it is neither wildly different from, nor overly similar to, anything else on the album) but second-guessing Radiohead’s motives is a pointless exercise. Supercollider would definitely have fitted nicely into the album’s overall soundscape and opened up some space in the flow. In this “digital age” though it’s easy to tack them onto the end of the album on one’s mp3 player – and that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Thanks very much guys… now, when do I get my “Newspaper Album” edition of The King of Limbs? 

Supercollider & The Butcher are available for download from W.A.S.T.E. by email invitation, or you could try buying a vinyl copy on eBay if you've got £100+ to spare. Alternatively I'm sure they will be available in other purchasable forms soon.