Jonny Greenwood – Bodysong

Jonny Greenwood’s Bodysong is the first full-length extracurricular project released by a member of Radiohead. We now have audible proof that supposed control freak Thom Yorke hasn’t been entirely responsible for the anti-pop tendencies that followed the band’s 1997 breakthrough OK Computer. But anyone who’s seen Greenwood put his guitar down at a show and hunch over his effect pedals while simultaneously manipulating a transistor radio and a wall of Moog modules could have told you that.
It’s important to distinguish Bodysong as a film score as opposed to a “Jonny Greenwood solo album.” Simon Pummell’s Brit Award-winning film analyzes human life experience in purely visual terms, and this score provides the only “narration.” The fact that Greenwood’s signature guitar playing appears on only two of the album’s thirteen tracks reinforces this project’s role of servitude.
Regardless, there are plenty of markers to help recognize Bodysong as a Radiohead-related project. The lumbering piano chords of the opening “Moon Trills” reflect back to Amnesiac‘s “Pyramid Song,” the keyboard serving as a relaxing element, even as fluttering violins create mounting tension. Greenwood’s considerable use of live strings and horns traces back to Kid A‘s “The National Anthem,” while tracks like “Trench” feature the sonic manipulation and sound masking in the rhythm section that has characterized Radiohead’s last three albums.