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If ever there was a favourite to embark alone, with
their satchel of creative belongings in tow, from the
fortified Radiohead catacombs onto the unknown
and unguarded plateaus of a solo project, it was always
going to be Jonny Greenwood. Odds on. He is,
after all, the meek, unsung hero of the band. Aside
from the continuous, feverish and plainly well deserved
hollers of “best frickin’ guitarist the whole frickin’
world has ever frickin’ seen” (you can of course substitute
‘guitarist’ for anything you like really, musician being
the easiest), he’s always played second fiddle (piano,
sampler, xylophone, manipulated frequencies, spoons,
etc.) to Thom Yorke. And Thom Yorke is, as perceived
wisdom dictates, Radiohead. So it would make little
sense for him to set out on his own when his every whim
is already pandered to, he knows where the tomato sauce
is kept and the way to the bathroom. Colin, Ed and Phil
are, for all their robust workmanship, mere yes men
in the scheme of things, no matter how noble the cause.
So to find Jonny in this position rings no alarms and
indeed no surprises.
 That
he has chosen a film soundtrack as his first opportunity
is no real revelation either, his wired freeform style
that moulds like an opulent virus around the edges and
between the cracks of Radiohead’s work seems perfectly
well suited to wrapping up visuals aurally. And it was
always clear that he’d never be dressing up the latest
Cameron Diaz or Cuba Gooding Jr vehicles, but even by
those predicted standards ‘Bodysong’ is art house (like,
a.r.t.HOUSE), about as wilfully angular as cinema gets.
Or it tries to be. Maybe that’s no surprise either.
The premise behind the film, and the more thorough website
extension to it, is a journey through life, from beginning
to end. It harvests grainy library footage, home videos,
clips from cinema, TV and, briefly, hardcore porn to
draw a moving patchwork narrative from birth to death.
There is no dialogue, there is little accompanying background
noise. It is essentially an expanding blank canvas with
no more than a few optional structural restrictions.
But even so, let off the leash surely the guitarist
of his generation would put his foot back on the figurative
monitor and cut loose a bit, shake that antique indie
fringe to some extent? Well, as it happens, it perhaps
turns out that ‘Kid A’ was more of a collective change
of tack than it originally seemed. Bodysong is abstract
in concept and abstract in sound. The partial coherence
that Radiohead returned to on ‘Hail To The Thief’ is
alien to the Tortoise-esque avant-garde favoured here.
With the sound of a plunger being pulled through a drum
of custard we are flying through tubes on a crash course
with the ovaries, before visiting the womb with its
muffled electronic heartbeat, then with scattered, building
electronic beats we’re thrown into the full explicitness
of a birthing pool, blood, pain, the lot. ‘Pyramid Song’
piano and looming strings are falling over themselves
to protect such scenes with a cushioning serenity that
maybe betrays the reality of what we see but brings
into focus the beauty.
Ideas and sounds are stretched and fragmented over series
of images; reoccurring themes, flexible rhythms and
free jazz improvisations raise their heads when necessary
making this a very adept work. Where the music does
work well with the images, almost numbing you up and
dragging you away from the action, rather than entwining
around it, so that you may become an observer, it also
works perfectly on its own. Maybe better. The film often
fails to live up to its promise visually, the cutting
fails to reflect the vibrancy or pace of existence,
relies heavily on too few clips that don’t always have
the impact you suspect was intended and the scope of
the narrative seeming too wide, muddled and unfocused
to be effective. But as an album which drifts subtly
through 13 tracks like an attentive viewer, relaying
details back through a scrambled language, it is a blissfully
scenic journey. And as with most good books perhaps
best experienced in your own imagination.
Bodysong opens in UK cinemas on December 5 2003
The soundtrack album is out now through EMI
Relevant sites:
www.bodysong.com
www.radiohead.com
www.jonnygreenwood.com
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2003©
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