The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Radiohead · Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway · produced by Nigel Godrich · XL Recordings · eleven tracks, about 52 minutes
Mode
Art rock held in an orchestral setting: strings and choir written into a band’s sound, electronics kept low
Mythos
The witch-hunt, the counting rhyme of fates, the castaway, the dreamer and the moon-shaped pool: myth evoked in titles and figures, not built
Phase
Eleven tracks in alphabetical order; an outward blow first, a slow fall second, a level middle with one high crest, a murk, and a closing plea
Presentation
Album; eleven tracks, about fifty-two and a half minutes, issued digitally on 8 May 2016; several songs with earlier lives before the record
Register
A voice half sung and often buried; struck and sustained strings, layered pianos, choir, soft electronics and unshowy drums
Scale
One consciousness in one season: a love ending, with the crowd and the earth heard through two songs
Governing Proposition
Five musicians bring strings and choir from the margins of their sound to its centre and make a hushed record in which a long love ends and the self sinks toward water and sleep. Its eleven songs stand in alphabetical order, so that an outward blow at the hunting crowd opens it by its letter and a bare plea not to be left closes it.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record opens with strings struck with the wood of the bow. Burn the Witch is driven by that col legno attack, a staccato pulse under a song of the crowd that hunts, names its victim and is licensed to burn it. It is the record’s one outward blow, terror in a rush, and it is first because of its letter: the eleven songs stand in alphabetical order by title, the article of The Numbers ignored, from Burn the Witch to True Love Waits. Whatever the order means, it begins with the public world at its most menacing, and the private record that follows turns away from it.
Radiohead issued A Moon Shaped Pool digitally through XL Recordings on 8 May 2016: eleven tracks in about fifty-two and a half minutes, produced by Nigel Godrich, the band being Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway, with sleeve and artwork by Stanley Donwood and Yorke. Orchestral strings sound on most tracks, and Jonny Greenwood’s string writing is the record’s most distinctive making. Several of the songs had earlier lives before the record, and Burn the Witch, a song older than the album it opens, is one of them.
The strings are what make Burn the Witch more than a protest. Their attack is the song’s content: the crowd is heard in the bowing before it is heard in the words, and the song moves forward on wood striking string. The making here is exact and load-bearing, strings and band one instrument rather than a band with an orchestra laid on, and the song shows at once the record’s chief means. It also shows the record’s chief limit. The social condition it summons, the hunt and the licence to hunt, is gestured at with force and not articulated, and the record leaves it after one song.
Movement II
Daydreaming is the record’s centre, and it sinks instead of rising. A slow descending piano figure falls under strings, the voice drifts through it, and the song passes as if through rooms toward a point of no return. At over six minutes it is the record’s longest track. Its line “dreamers, they never learn” names a type, the one who keeps hoping, and the song does not argue with him. At its close the voice is slowed and reversed, and a low groan of bowed strings ends it: a song that finishes lower than it began, in a register below speech.
What Daydreaming discloses, and the record with it, is the condition of a long love ending: the years given to it, the wish to leave and the wish to be kept, and the fear that the waste cannot be redeemed. The disclosure is carried by sound as fully as by word, in the falling piano and the reversed voice, and it does not depend on anything known of the makers’ lives; remove that knowledge and the condition is still a love ending. It can be stated, and it holds. That is a meaning, not only a mood, though the record arrives at it through mood.
The words are oblique, often half sung and buried, and they state little that can be held as true beyond the loss. Yorke’s voice sits low in many mixes, further down than the songs gain from, and the record asks to be heard more than understood. The outward songs, Burn the Witch on the crowd and The Numbers on the earth, gesture at a social condition and do not articulate it. The disclosure is real and private: one consciousness in one season, a love without a second face, and a grief rendered so exactly that its narrowness is easy to miss.
Movement III
The record rises often, warm and grieving. The Numbers builds from an acoustic figure to a string climax that is the record’s grandest moment, a song on the earth and the crowd lifted to a height the private songs do not try. Decks Dark lifts on a choir and a heavy drum entry. Glass Eyes, the shortest track, is piano and swelling strings, beautiful and frail. True Love Waits rises by subtraction. Seven of eleven tracks rise, and Daydreaming and The Numbers reach well up the medium’s range, though the warmth stays in one temperature and nothing reaches the medium’s summits.
The heights are made. Greenwood’s string writing is exact, the slow chords of Daydreaming and the climax of The Numbers voiced and placed so that strings and band are one instrument. Godrich’s production keeps a dense, quiet record legible and makes its blur a choice. Selway’s drumming is fine and unshowy in Identikit and Ful Stop. The charges are more than one: the buried vocals, the drift of Tinker Tailor and of stretches of Ful Stop, some generic electronic textures. The making serves a narrow range with great finish more than it commands a wide one.
The inheritance is the band’s own. Behind the record lie twenty years of guitar records turned electronic, the hushed string-led songs the band had made before, How to Disappear Completely on Kid A the nearest ancestor, and Greenwood’s concert and film scoring. The turn is the integration of the orchestra, brought from the margins of the band’s sound to its centre, with the electronics kept low. It was made with great care, and it consolidated more than it departed: a band at settled height working in a manner its listeners already knew, in a decade whose departures were elsewhere.
Movement IV
The middle of the record holds strong songs whose necessity is that of good songs to a good collection. Desert Island Disk and Ful Stop, a long motorik build that reaches force more than height, could be lost with a loss of variety, not of meaning. Identikit rides a funk bass and Present Tense a guitar figure near bossa nova; both are lovely and level. Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief, long, slow and murky, second from last, restates the record’s dread more than it advances it. Here the songs are containers for their arrangements, and several would stand anywhere.
Its title gives the record its counting rhyme, the rhyme of fates by which a child tells which one it will be, set beside a murky lament. Myth enters the record this way throughout: the witch-hunt of the opening, the castaway of Desert Island Disk, the dreamer of Daydreaming, the moon-shaped pool of the title with its water, reflection and drowning, and the record does end in still water of a kind. These are evoked strongly. None is built into a structure that carries the record, and the particular stays private: a man, a love, an ending, without a figure who bears the pattern.
The order forbids a constructed journey, because it is the alphabet’s. An arbitrary order that happens to work is credited for working, and this one works: an outward blow gives way to a private sinking that ends on a plea. It can be heard as a form of letting go, a refusal to arrange the loss into a story, and the record’s two ends bear that hearing out, while its middle could be reordered without loss. Whatever archetype the record reaches it reaches song by song, as atmosphere, and the knowledge carried by form lives inside the songs more than between them.
Movement V
True Love Waits ends the record because of its letter, and it is the right end. A song with a long earlier life in performance, a young man’s plea, is set down last as an older man’s request: layered piano figures circling a voice, reduced to the plea “don’t leave”. It rises by subtraction. The difference between this recording and the song’s live life is the meaning, and the record that opened with a crowd hunting its victim closes with one voice asking not to be left. Both ends are about being taken, by the mob or by the loss, and the opening blow is answered by the closing plea.
Ten years is a short time to judge. The record was widely praised on release and holds an established place in the band’s work, kept in view by the standing of its makers and by streaming, but it reached its audience as a late work and has not passed into general awareness as the band’s earlier records did. No later record is traced to it. Its fabric favours it: strings, piano, choir and restrained electronics date less than most production of 2016, and nothing in it is topical except, faintly, Burn the Witch. A listener returning finds more of the made thing; what is found in the words is harder to tell from projection.
The record is a slow fall made with great finish. Its making is exact, its heights are real, Daydreaming above all, and one law, a hushed world in which a love ends and the self sinks toward water and sleep, governs nearly every song. What it discloses can be stated. But its turn consolidated a manner already known, its myths are evoked and not built, and its world is one consciousness in one season, with the public orders heard through two songs. It does not define the music it belongs to. It is a serious record, a late one made with care, and it ends on a plea not to be left.
Act III · The Twelve
Eleven songs in fifty-two minutes, and the frame is compelled. Daydreaming is the centre and could not go. True Love Waits must end it, a song with a long earlier life set down last as a plea. Burn the Witch is required as the one outward blow, the menace the private record turns away from. Most songs survive the subtractive test as parts as well as songs: Decks Dark, Glass Eyes and The Numbers each add a height the others lack. The test bites in the middle. Desert Island Disk and Ful Stop could go with a loss of variety, not of meaning, and Tinker Tailor restates the dread more than it advances it.
Score: 7.9 / 10
What the record brings into the open, by sound as much as by word, is the condition of a long love ending: the years given to it, the wish to leave and the wish to be kept, and the fear that the waste cannot be redeemed. Daydreaming is the plainest disclosure: a slow descending piano under strings, “dreamers, they never learn”, and at its end a voice slowed and reversed. True Love Waits, once a young man’s plea, is here an older man’s, reduced to piano and “don’t leave”. The condition can be stated and holds. Held back because the outward songs gesture at a social condition without articulating it, and the oblique words state little beyond the loss.
Score: 8.0 / 10
Elevation is frequent, warm and grieving. Daydreaming is the summit: a slow fall through piano and strings that sinks rather than climbs, ending in a low voice and a low groan of bowed strings. True Love Waits rises by subtraction, layered piano figures circling a voice. The Numbers builds from an acoustic figure to a string climax, the record’s grandest moment. Decks Dark lifts on a choir and a heavy drum entry; Glass Eyes is piano and swelling strings, beautiful and frail; Burn the Witch has the terror of its struck strings. Ful Stop reaches force more than height, and Tinker Tailor stays in its murk. Seven of eleven rise, all in one temperature.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Myth is evoked in titles and figures, strongly and often. Burn the Witch summons the witch-hunt and the crowd that names its victim, a myth older than any of its uses. Tinker Tailor sets the counting rhyme of fates beside a murky lament. The moon-shaped pool of the title suggests water, reflection and drowning, and the record ends in still water of a kind. Daydreaming passes through rooms toward a point of no return, and the dreamer who never learns is a type; Desert Island Disk takes the castaway’s frame. What holds the axis is that none of these is built into a structure that carries the record, and the alphabetical order forbids a constructed journey.
Score: 7.5 / 10
The inheritance is the band’s own: twenty years of guitar records turned electronic, the hushed string-led songs made before, How to Disappear Completely on Kid A the nearest ancestor, and Jonny Greenwood’s concert and film scoring, which by 2016 had its own public. The turn is the integration. The orchestra comes from the margins of the band’s sound to its centre, choir and strings written as part of the songs, the electronics kept low; and the alphabetical sequence is a small refusal of design. The stake was low: a band at settled height made a record in a manner its listeners already knew, more refined than new, in a decade whose departures were elsewhere.
Score: 7.4 / 10
Change the form and the record loses much of what it knows. The sequence is the alphabet’s, and it works: Burn the Witch opens and True Love Waits closes because of their letters, an outward blow giving way to a private sinking that ends on a plea. The arbitrary order can be heard as a form of letting go, a refusal to arrange the loss into a story, and the record’s two ends bear that hearing out. Inside the songs the form carries more: Daydreaming’s descent and reversed close are its knowledge, and True Love Waits stripped to layered pianos is a different song from its live life. What holds the figure is the middle, where Ful Stop or Identikit would stand anywhere.
Score: 7.8 / 10
Ten years is short, and the axis prefers evidence to promise; much of this figure is forecast, made on the depth the record already shows. Its formal depth is real: Greenwood’s string writing, the struck strings of Burn the Witch, the voices half buried in Decks Dark and Daydreaming, the reversed vocal, the layered pianos of True Love Waits, a mix that keeps sounds just below clear hearing. A listener returning finds more of the made thing. The evidence so far is continued attention among listeners and critics and an established place in the band’s work. Against this the words are oblique, and some of what is found in them is projection invited by obscurity.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The field is the album of the 2010s. The record perfects a manner, the art-rock song held in an orchestral and electronic setting, and makes the orchestra a working part of a rock band’s sound with unusual skill: strings and choir are written into the band, not laid on it. That is real force, but it does not reorganise what an album could do, and its devices were the band’s own or Greenwood’s from his film work. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the record was widely praised on release and holds a settled place in the band’s catalogue, but no redirection of later records is traced to it. Delayed influence is credited as possible and discounted.
Score: 7.2 / 10
Survival is weighed over ten years. The form is whole: the record survives as issued, its order and mix unchanged. Presence is continuous in the brief time it has had, kept in view by its makers’ standing and by streaming, but narrower than the band’s earlier records: it reached its audience as a late work and has not passed into general awareness as those did. The fabric favours it: strings, piano, choir and restrained electronics date less than most production of its year, and nothing is topical except, faintly, Burn the Witch. But ten years demonstrates little: it stands a tenth below Blackstar, of the same year, whose presence is wider, and below the thirty-year books, Fight Club at 8.4 and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline at 8.3.
Score: 7.8 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere, is the record’s strongest axis and load-bearing where it counts. Jonny Greenwood’s string writing is exact: the struck attack of Burn the Witch, the slow chords of Daydreaming, the climax of The Numbers, voiced so that strings and band are one instrument. Nigel Godrich’s production keeps a dense, quiet record legible and makes its blur a choice; the layered pianos of True Love Waits are recorded with a closeness that carries the song. The charges: the vocals are often buried past what the songs gain, Tinker Tailor and stretches of Ful Stop drift, some electronic textures are generic. Below The Dark Side of the Moon and Low at 9.0.
Score: 8.6 / 10
One law governs most of the record: a hushed world of strings, piano and soft electronics in which a love ends and the self sinks toward water and sleep. The two most distant elements, Burn the Witch, a staccato song of the hunting crowd, and True Love Waits, pianos and a voice asking not to be left, obey it at a stretch. Both are about being taken, by the mob or by the loss, and the opening blow is answered by the closing plea; but the record places them at its two ends more than it joins them. The range is moderate: a motorik pulse in Ful Stop, a guitar figure near bossa nova in Present Tense. Narrowness is not coherence.
Score: 8.0 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. Consciousness is held fully, as grief, dread and the wish to be kept. The couple is held as absence more than presence: there is no second person with a face. The crowd and the state enter in Burn the Witch, as the mob that hunts and the authority that licenses it; the earth enters in The Numbers, and water through the title and the sinking songs; time, as the years spent, in Daydreaming. What holds the figure there is that the public orders are glimpsed and joined to the private only by juxtaposition, and labour, the family beyond the couple, history and the sacred are absent.
Score: 6.8 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
7.8 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier III · Major
Strongest Dimensions
The Made at 8.6, then The Sublime at 8.4, The Unconcealment and The Inner Law at 8.0. String writing, production and a recorded closeness that make strings and band one instrument; elevation on seven of eleven tracks, from the slow fall of Daydreaming to the string climax of The Numbers; a disclosure of a long love ending carried by sound as fully as by word; and one hushed law over nearly every song.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.8: consciousness and the couple held, the crowd and the earth heard through two songs and joined to the private only by juxtaposition, with labour, history and the sacred absent. Then Pressure on Tradition at 7.2 and The Swerve at 7.4: a manner perfected rather than a field reorganised, with no later record yet traced to it, and an integration of the orchestra that consolidated a path the band and its listeners knew.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.9 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 7.8, The Made at 8.6, The Inner Law at 8.0, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on all five: The Unconcealment at 8.0, The Imperishable at 7.8, The Archetypal Deep at 7.5, The Swerve at 7.4 and Pressure on Tradition at 7.2 each fall short of the bar of 8.5. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Swerve, 7.4, and Pressure on Tradition, 7.2, both below 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.8. Three of the five summit conditions are met. The work stands where its aggregate places it: 7.8, in the band of Tier III, short of the 8.0 at which Tier IV begins and of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · the album as issued digitally by XL Recordings on 8 May 2016, eleven tracks in their released order, which is alphabetical by title, about fifty-two and a half minutes, produced by Nigel Godrich, with sleeve and artwork by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke; judged from knowledge of the recording and its reception; no recording or lyric sheet was in hand, knowledge of the lyrics is partial, and running times are approximate. Songs are cited by title; two lyric fragments of four words or fewer are quoted, and the images described are paraphrased. The makers’ private lives are not taken as evidence. Facts that could not be verified, among them the date of the physical release, the orchestra, choir and conductor, the studios, the earlier histories of particular songs and their dates, and the record’s prizes and nominations, are not given.