A.A.V.V.
Exit Music For Radio Heads (Radiohead tribute)

There are oceans of Radiohead work reviews here on Debaser which almost made me hate them, damn you all, but this time... this time I'm going to surprise you all and shoot you with this little disc that just came out...

What's it about? A simple cover album but... wow, what a delightful surprise! In the fantastic kingdom of the virtual world "www", every day a musician emerges offering us his cover of a big hit, and it's easy to come across punk-hardcore versions of many slow pop songs and/or vice versa of noisy-devastating tracks made audiomately accessible thanks to new soft arrangements...

The lion's share of the reference albums is undeniably "Ok Computer" (five tracks), followed equally by "The Bends" and "Kid A" (four each), closing with "Pablo Honey" and "Amnesiac" with one track each. It starts off well with a pleasant "No Surprises" trip-pop-black-soul supported by the beautiful warm voice of Shawn Lee and from the first sound nanosecond (reminiscent of the noise and murmur of people at the start of "The Bends"!) it is already clear that there's no joking around with Yorke and his colleagues' work: here the performances are redone with a great deal of religious respect and always with an eye on the trap you can fall into when approaching the world of musical tributes: allowing free rein to imaginative improvisational sorties without straying far from the tracks laid down by the legitimate authors.

Randy Watson Experience feat. Donn gift us with a nice extended acid-jazz version with ambient-new age nuances of "Morning Bell", while SA-RA feat. The SA-RA All Stars delight us with an "In Limbo" that seems to have come out of Prince's sick mind.
Really curious is the Marvin Gaye take on “High and Dry” by Pete Kuzma and Bilal, as well as the subsequent "Just" by Mark Ronson feat. Alex Greenwald centered on funky guitar and bass riffs and supported by a wicked combination of a horn section with typically seventies style drum breaks. "Airbag" by RJD2 is a fine piece of 80s electronics that would please people like AIR and Daft Punk. The sweet retro accordion that accompanies "Nice Dream" is the result of Matthew Herbert's sensitivity, accompanied by the excellent Mara Carlyle on vocals. Certainly, major pieces such as "Karma Police", entrusted to the incredible imagination of the Jazz band "Bad Plus" (perhaps the best moment of the compilation) and a moving "Paranoid Android" on the piano which relies entirely on the feeble Fiona Apple-like voice of the little-known Sia, could not be missing.

A truly interesting work, almost an experimental thesis, maybe a little bit pretentious (as the great sfascia carrozze would say) but of undeniable charm that I highly recommend to all Radiohead fans and not.

P.S.
You can listen to the samples on the official website of the record company http://www.rapsterrecords. com/radioheads by clicking on the "tracklist" option.