Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool [2× 180g Vinyl LP]

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool [2× 180g Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: 2× Vinyl LP, Album, Gatefold, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: XLLP790
• Barcode: 634904079017
• Genre: Art Rock / Chamber Pop / Electronic / Alternative
• Label: XL Recordings
• Released: 17 June 2016
• Pressing: 180 Gram Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

A Moon Shaped Pool is the ninth studio album by Radiohead, released on XL Recordings on 17 June 2016, and one of the most emotionally devastating records of their career. Work began in Radiohead's Oxfordshire studio in September 2014 with their long-term producer and informal sixth member Nigel Godrich, who made the deliberate decision to abandon the sampling software and computer-based methods that had defined The King of Limbs (2011) in favour of recording to analogue tape using multitrack recorders — a process inspired, Godrich has said, by Motown and early David Bowie records. Tracking sessions continued at La Fabrique studio in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Jonny Greenwood estimated that 80% of the album was recorded in just two weeks. Godrich subsequently mixed and edited the album in London.

The album occupies a distinctive position in Radiohead's catalogue as a synthesis of their entire career — the electronic experimentation and textural density of the Kid A/Amnesiac era interlacing with the emotional directness of The Bends and In Rainbows. It incorporates art rock, folk, chamber music, ambient and baroque pop, unified by Jonny Greenwood's orchestral arrangements for strings and choir, performed throughout by the London Contemporary Orchestra and conducted by Hugh Brunt. The strings are not decorative but structural: they carry the weight of the album's emotional argument, most arrestingly on "Burn the Witch" (where cellists were instructed to detune their cellos for a growling, destabilised effect), "Daydreaming", and the closing "True Love Waits" — a song Radiohead had been attempting to record since 1995, finally realised here on solo piano and electronics. The album was mastered by Bob Ludwig and the artwork was created, as on every Radiohead release since The Bends, by Stanley Donwood.

Personal circumstances give the record its particular emotional charge. Thom Yorke separated from his partner of 23 years, Rachel Owen, during the sessions; she passed away from cancer in December 2016, seven months after the album's release. Godrich lost his father on the day the strings for "Burn the Witch" were recorded. The album opens with the word "Stay" and ends with the word "Leave". A Moon Shaped Pool debuted at number one in the UK and reached number three in the United States, and was named album of the year by Uncut, The Guardian, NME, and numerous other publications. It contains some of the most beloved individual tracks in the band's catalogue: "Burn the Witch" with its Hitchcock-referencing stop-motion video; "Daydreaming", directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; "The Numbers", which addresses climate change; and "Ful Stop", the album's most viscerally propulsive moment, built from vocal loops recorded during the King of Limbs tour.

This pressing on 2× 180 gram black vinyl is presented in a gatefold sleeve with silver-foil embossed title detail — a physically elegant edition of one of the finest British rock albums of the 21st century.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Burn the Witch
2. Daydreaming

Side B

1. Decks Dark
2. Desert Island Disk
3. Ful Stop

Side C

1. Glass Eyes
2. Identikit
3. The Numbers

Side D

1. Present Tense
2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief
3. True Love Waits

Credits

• Thom Yorke – Vocals, Guitar
• Jonny Greenwood – Guitar, String & Choir Arrangements
• Colin Greenwood – Bass
• Ed O'Brien – Guitar
• Philip Selway – Drums
• Clive Deamer – Additional Drums
• Nigel Godrich – Producer, Engineer, Mixer
• Sam Petts-Davies – Engineer
• Bob Ludwig – Mastering
• London Contemporary Orchestra – Strings & Choir
• Hugh Brunt – Conductor
• Stanley Donwood – Artwork & Design
• Label – XL Recordings