The Smile
The Smile in January 2022
Background information
Genres
Years active2020–present
Labels
Spinoff ofRadiohead
Members
Websitethesmiletheband.com

The Smile are an English rock band comprising the Radiohead members Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, bass, keys) and Jonny Greenwood (guitar, bass, keys) with Tom Skinner (drums). They incorporate elements of post-punk, progressive rock, Afrobeat and electronic music.

The Smile worked during the COVID-19 lockdowns and made their surprise debut in a performance streamed by Glastonbury Festival in May 2021. In early 2022, they released six singles and performed to an audience for the first time at three shows in London, which were livestreamed. In May, the Smile released their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention, to acclaim. It was produced by Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's longtime producer.

The Smile toured Europe and North America in 2022 and 2023. They have released two live EPs: The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022) and Europe: Live Recordings 2022. Their second album, Wall of Eyes, is scheduled for 2024.

History

The Smile are composed of the Radiohead members Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke with the drummer Tom Skinner.[2] Skinner, who had played with acts including the jazz band Sons of Kemet,[2] first worked with Greenwood when he played on his soundtrack to the 2012 film The Master.[3] The Smile members agreed not to give interviews about the project.[3] They take their name from the title of a poem by Ted Hughes.[4] Yorke said it was "not the smile as in 'ahh', more the smile as in the guy who lies to you every day".[5]

The Smile's first record was produced by Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's longtime producer.[6] Godrich said the project emerged from Greenwood "writing all these riffs, waiting for something to happen" during the COVID-19 lockdown. He cited the pandemic and the unavailability of the Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien, who was busy with his debut solo album, Earth (2020), as motivating factors.[7] Greenwood said: "We didn't have much time, but we just wanted to finish some songs together. It's been very stop-start, but it's felt a happy way to make music."[8] Radiohead's drummer, Philip Selway, said it was healthy for the members to explore different projects and "see what these other musical voices can do with your ideas".[9]

First performances

The Smile at the Factory in Deep Ellum, Dallas, December 2022

The Smile made their debut in a surprise performance for the concert video Live at Worthy Farm, produced by Glastonbury Festival and streamed on May 22, 2021. The performance was recorded in secret earlier that week and announced on the day of the stream.[4] The band performed eight songs, with Yorke and Greenwood on guitar, bass, Moog synthesiser and Rhodes piano.[10] That October, Yorke performed a Smile song, "Free in the Knowledge", at the Letters Live event at the Royal Albert Hall, London.[11]

In January 2022, the Smile performed to an audience for the first time at three shows at Magazine, London, which were livestreamed.[12] They played in the round, and debuted several tracks, including "Speech Bubbles", "A Hairdryer", "Waving a White Flag" and "The Same".[13] The shows also included performances of "Open the Floodgates",[12] which Yorke first performed in 2010,[14] and a cover of the 1979 Joe Jackson single "It's Different for Girls".[13]

In NME, James Balmont gave the London show four out of five, describing it as "meticulous, captivating stuff".[15] In the Guardian, Kitty Empire gave it four out of five, writing that "the Smile are most musically convincing when they stretch farther away from Radiohead",[16] while Alexis Petridis gave it three, saying it was "intriguing rather than dazzling, intermittently spellbinding, filled with fascinating ideas that don't always coalesce".[17]

A Light for Attracting Attention

On 20 April 2022, the Smile announced their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. It was released digitally through XL Recordings on 13 May, followed by a retail release on 17 June,[18] and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart.[19] It received acclaim.[20] The Pitchfork critic Ryan Dombal wrote that it was "instantly, unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project".[21] The first single, "You Will Never Work in Television Again", was released on streaming platforms on 5 January 2022.[22] It was followed by "The Smoke",[23] "Skrting on the Surface",[24] "Pana-vision",[25] "Free in the Knowledge",[26] and "Thin Thing".[27]

On 16 May, the Smile began a tour of Europe and North America.[28][29] The tour included performances of the unreleased song "Just Eyes and Mouth", Yorke's 2009 single "FeelingPulledApartByHorses" and new material.[30][31] The band were joined for some songs by the saxophonist Robert Stillman.[32] A second North American tour began in mid-2023, including the Smile's first show in Mexico City[33] and a headlining slot at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.[34]

On 14 December, the Smile released a digital EP, The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022), with songs from their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland.[35] On 10 March 2023, they released a limited-edition vinyl EP, Europe: Live Recordings 2022, which includes a performance of "FeelingPulledApartByHorses".[33]

Wall of Eyes

In March 2023, the Smile confirmed that they were seven weeks into recording a second album.[36] On 20 June, they released the first single from their second album, "Bending Hectic", featuring strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra.[37] Stereogum described it as an "epic that starts out soft and quiet and builds into a splendorous stomping beast".[38] In September, Yorke and Donwood exhibited a selection of artwork created for the Smile, The Crow Flies, in London.[39]

The Smile announced their second album, Wall of Eyes, on 13 November, alongside another single, "Wall of Eyes", with a music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.[40] The album was produced by Sam Petts-Davies and is set for release on 26 January 2024.[40] Another single, "Friend of a Friend", was released on 9 January. On the same day, the Smile announced Wall of Eyes, on Film, a series of screenings at independent cinemas that month. Along with a listening event for the album, the screenings will include the "Friend of a Friend" video, also directed by Anderson, plus Anderson's previous videos with the Smile, Yorke and Radiohead.[41] The Smile are due to begin a European tour in March 2024.[42]

Style

Consequence wrote that the Smile incorporate elements of post-punk, proto-punk and math rock.[43] Several critics likened them to Radiohead; both acts use "warped" melodies, unusual time signatures and "vintage rock" sensibilities.[44][45] The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis said the Smile "sound like a simultaneously more skeletal and knottier version of Radiohead", incorporating progressive rock influences, complex riffs and "hard-driving" motorik psychedelia.[45] The Uncut critic Wyndham Wallace described the Smile as "less a spinoff than regeneration, like a new Doctor Who, emerging from the same gene pool with equal gravitas".[44]

Pitchfork identified a "slight bounce" in Skinner's drumming and "unfamiliar aggression" in Greenwood's basslines.[10] On several Smile songs, Greenwood uses a delay effect to create "angular" synchronised repeats.[46] The critic Kitty Empire noted Afrobeat elements in "Just Eyes and Mouth" and influence from 1960s electronic music and systems music in "Open the Floodgates" and "The Same".[16] Reviewing "You Will Never Work in Television Again", the critic Jayson Greene described it as a "raw-boned rock number" reminiscent of Radiohead's 1995 album The Bends.[47]

Members

Touring members

  • Robert Stillman – saxophone

Discography

Studio albums

Title Details Peak chart positions
UK
[48]		 UK
Indie
[49]		 AUS
[50]		 BEL
(FL)
[51]		 IRE
[52]		 NLD
[53]		 NZ
[54]		 US
[55]		 US
Indie
[56]		 US
Rock
[57]
A Light for Attracting Attention 5115511
[58]		3321922
Wall of Eyes
  • Scheduled: 26 January 2024
  • Label: XL, Self Help Tapes
  • Formats: LP, CD, download, streaming
 To be released

EPs

Title Details Peak chart positions
UK
Sales
[59]		 UK
Indie
[60]		 SCO
[61]		 US
Sales
[62]
The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022) ————
Europe: Live Recordings 2022
  • Released: 10 March 2023
  • Format: LP, CD
  • Label: XL
 95957

Singles

Title Year Peak chart positions Album
UK
DL
[63]
"You Will Never Work in Television Again" 2022 — A Light for Attracting Attention
"The Smoke" —
"Skrting on the Surface" —
"Pana-vision" —
"Free in the Knowledge" —
"Thin Thing" —
"Open the Floodgates" / "A Hairdryer"[64]
(Live from Magazine, London)		 — Non-album single
"Bending Hectic" 2023 31 Wall of Eyes
"Wall of Eyes" —
"Friend of a Friend" 2024 —

References

  1. 1 2 Monger, James Christopher. "The Smile - Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  2. 1 2 "Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood form new project, the Smile". The Guardian. 22 May 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  3. 1 2 Kalia, Ammar (8 November 2022). "Tom Skinner on the Smile, Sons of Kemet and going solo: 'It gives me a blank slate to explore'". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  4. 1 2 Savage, Mark (22 May 2021). "The Smile: Radiohead stars to debut new band at Glastonbury live-stream". BBC News. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  5. ↑ Kreps, Daniel (23 May 2021). "See Radiohead side project the Smile perform new song 'We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Aubrey, Elizabeth (14 August 2021). "Nigel Godrich and Thom Yorke give cryptic update on new project the Smile". NME. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  7. ↑ Doherty, Niall (27 July 2022). "Lost in music: Nigel Godrich". The New Cue. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  8. ↑ Earls, John (3 September 2021). "Jonny Greenwood on writing the soundtrack for new Princess Diana biopic Spencer". NME. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  9. ↑ Reed, Ryan (6 January 2023). "Radiohead's Philip Selway on atmospheric solo LP, Radiohead's future". Spin. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  10. 1 2 Hussey, Allison; Ruiz, Matthew Ismael (22 May 2021). "A look at Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's debut as the Smile at Glastonbury 2021 livestream". Pitchfork. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  11. ↑ Strauss, Matthew (20 December 2021). "Watch Thom Yorke play the Smile's "Free in the Knowledge"". Pitchfork. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  12. 1 2 Monroe, Jazz (30 January 2022). "The Smile's new songs, debuted in London, sound like Radiohead. (That's a good thing.)". Pitchfork. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  13. 1 2 Deville, Chris (31 January 2022). "Watch the Smile cover Joe Jackson's 'It's Different For Girls'". Stereogum. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
  14. ↑ Hogan, Marc (4 March 2016). "19 unreleased Radiohead songs that could be on their next album". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  15. ↑ "The Smile live in London: Radiohead side project prove they're human after all". NME. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  16. 1 2 Empire, Kitty (5 February 2022). "The Smile review – Yorke and Greenwood stay close to the mothership". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  17. ↑ Petridis, Alexis (30 January 2022). "The Smile review – Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood give prog rock tendencies full rein". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  18. ↑ Lavin, Will (20 April 2022). "The Smile announce debut album 'A Light For Attracting Attention'". NME. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  19. ↑ "Harry, Drake and Foals: Who got the UK's Number 1 album this week?". Official Charts Company. 24 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  20. ↑ "A Light for Attracting Attention". Metacritic. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  21. ↑ Dombal, Ryan (12 May 2022). "The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention". Pitchfork. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  22. ↑ Rhian, Daly (5 January 2022). "Radiohead side project the Smile share debut single 'You Will Never Work In Television Again'". NME. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  23. ↑ Moore, Sam (27 January 2022). "Listen to Radiohead side project the Smile's new single 'The Smoke'". NME. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  24. ↑ Minsker, Evan (17 March 2022). "The Smile share video for new song 'Skrting on the Surface'". Pitchfork. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  25. ↑ Kreps, Daniel (3 April 2022). "Radiohead side project the Smile debut new song 'Pana-vision' in final Peaky Blinders episode". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  26. ↑ Lavin, Will (20 April 2022). "The Smile announce debut album 'A Light For Attracting Attention'". NME. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  27. ↑ Rettig, James (9 May 2022). "The Smile – 'Thin Thing'". Stereogum. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
  28. ↑ Richards, Will (18 May 2022). "The Smile debut new song 'Friend of a Friend' as they kick off European tour". NME. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  29. ↑ Monroe, Jazz (13 June 2022). "The Smile to tour North America". Pitchfork. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  30. ↑ Golsen, Tyler (19 May 2022). "The Smile premiere new song 'Friend of a Friend' live". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  31. ↑ Lavin, Will (10 July 2022). "Thom Yorke confirms new Smile music is in the works". NME. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
  32. ↑ Pearis, Bill (15 November 2022). "The Smile made their US live debut in Providence (setlist, video)". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  33. 1 2 Murrary, Robin (30 January 2023). "The Smile announce Europe: Live Recordings 2022 EP". Clash. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
  34. ↑ Blistein, Jon (20 March 2023). "The Smile, Big Thief, Kelela Tapped for 2023 Pitchfork Music Festival". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
  35. ↑ Corcoran, Nina (13 December 2022). "The Smile announce new live album". Pitchfork. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  36. ↑ Jones, Abby (16 June 2023). "Johnny Greenwood says the Smile "have a big backlog of ideas"". Consequence. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  37. ↑ Dunworth, Liberty (20 June 2023). "The Smile release 'Bending Hectic', their first new music of 2023". NME. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
  38. ↑ Deville, Chris (20 June 2023). "The Smile Share New Single "Bending Hectic": Listen". Stereogum. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  39. ↑ Lindert, Hattie (2 August 2023). "Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood Announce Art Exhibition The Crow Flies Part One". Pitchfork. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  40. 1 2 Lindert, Hattie (13 November 2023). "The Smile Announce New Album Wall of Eyes, Share Video for New Song Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson". Pitchfork. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
  41. ↑ Corcoran, Nina (9 January 2024). "The Smile Share New Song "Friend of a Friend," Announce Global Movie Theater Screenings". Pitchfork. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  42. ↑ Richards, Will (13 November 2023). "The Smile announce new album Wall of Eyes with Paul Thomas Anderson-directed video". Rolling Stone UK. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
  43. ↑ Young, Alex (22 May 2021). "Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood debut new post-punk band the Smile at Glastonbury". Consequence. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
  44. 1 2 Wallace, Wyndham (February 2024). "The Smile — Wall of Eyes". Uncut.
  45. 1 2 Petridis, Alexis (23 May 2021). "Live at Worthy Farm review – beautiful music marred by technical meltdown". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  46. ↑ Michael, Astley-Brown (31 January 2022). "The Smile just played their first-ever public gigs – here are six things we learned about the Radiohead offshoot". Guitar World. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  47. ↑ Greene, Jayson (5 January 2021). "'You Will Never Work in Television Again' by the Smile review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  48. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100 – 24 June 2022". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  49. ↑ "Official Independent Albums Chart Top 50 – 24 June 2022". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  50. ↑ "ARIA Top 50 Albums Chart". Australian Recording Industry Association. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  51. ↑ "The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention" (in Dutch). Ultratop. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  52. ↑ "Top 100 Artist Album, Week Ending 20 May 2022". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  53. ↑ "Discografie The Smile". dutchcharts.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  54. ↑ "NZ Top 40 Albums Chart". Recorded Music NZ. 23 May 2022. Retrieved 21 May 2022.
  55. ↑ "Billboard 200: Week of July 2, 2022". Billboard. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  56. ↑ "Independent Albums – July 2, 2022". Billboard. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  57. ↑ "Top Rock Albums – July 2, 2022". Billboard. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  58. ↑ "Top 100 Artist Album, Week Ending 24 June 2022". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  59. ↑ "Official Albums Sales Chart Top 100 – 17 March 2023". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  60. ↑ "Official Independent Albums Chart Top 50 – 17 March 2023". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  61. ↑ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100 – 17 March 2023". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  62. ↑ "Top Rock Albums – March 25, 2023". Billboard. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
  63. ↑ "Official Singles Downloads Chart Top 100 – 23 June 2023". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  64. ↑ "A Hairdryer / Open the Floodgates by The Smile". Rough Trade. Archived from the original on 24 March 2023. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
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