When the nine remixes that make up this CD officially hit the web in December 2007, surprisingly few paid them much attention. It wasn't a quality issue as much as timing-- an incredible marketing plan/album called In Rainbows had been set upon starving web consumers just two months before, and Radiohead fans were still in the glassy-eyed-wonder stage. At that point, Thom Yorke's The Eraser seemed like a harmless but necessary detour. While only a few would name The Eraser as their favorite Radiohead-related LP, the 2006 record gave Yorke the chance to air out his electrohead side before heading back to the band for In Rainbows-- the most naturalistic Radiohead album since OK Computer. The assumed logic seems sound: no Eraser, no In Rainbows. A little over a year ago, The Eraser was a tiny lily pad, so why fret about these redos courtesy of dudes from Yorkie's dubstep-heavy iPod?
Though there's no discernible reason for The Eraser Rmxs finally getting a U.S. release right now (the songs were originally sold as MP3s, then a collection of three-song EPs, then as a CD in Japan last year), it sort of makes sense. Though the original album may have caused Radiohead to not make a record that sounds like it, the LP has caused some guy named Kanye West to do his best impression of it. Of the influences West cites in his recent Grammy ad, The Eraser lies directly in his head space. And there's no denying the spare sonic similarities between the record and West's current 808s and Heartbreak, which currently sits at No. 5 on the Billboard charts. Its current single, "Heartless", is No. 3. So it turns out The Eraser played a large part in both Radiohead's consensus return-to-form LP as well as one of the most galvanizing pop albums in recent memory. Maybe this record's more important that we originally thought.
And so: The Rmxs. Always looking out for the next weird, bassy, scatterbrained electronic thing, Yorke collects a coterie of producers that would make Aphex Twin-philes split their pants. (Alas, Afx himself could not be reached for comment.) Three of dubsteb's most notable names-- Burial, the Bug, and Various-- chip in, along with laptop gurus Four Tet, the Field, and Modeselektor. Considering the amounts of hands turning knobs both tangible and virtual, there's an impressive consistency about The Rmxs. While The Eraser saw Yorke sulking about end-times and hopeless love against a pristine backdrop of ambient loops and tiny, click-clack percussion, The Rmxs dirties things up considerably. This is rebel music. No longer is Yorke wailing in his bedroom; he's whispering in a basement, plotting an overthrow.
Burial starts it off and, in essence, ends it with the disc's best track. All the standard tics from dubstep's most enigmatic figure are apparent on his "And It Rained All Night" redo: sub-bass adorned with nothing but atmosphere-- Zippos flicker out and the clink of bullet shells hit the floor. Who's been shot? Nobody's saying. If this song soundtracked that awful Bacchanalia scene in The Matrix Reloaded, that movie would automatically be 10% more enjoyable. Unsurprisingly, Yorke's voice suits Burial's soupy concoctions just as nicely as those mysterious R&B divas he's usually fond of-- if this team ever decided to meet on an LP level, few would oppose. Cristian Vogel contributes two remixes, one of them the token overlong vamp that largely deletes Yorke's voice entirely, which is just silly. The Bug's "Harrowdown Hill" takes the singer's seething political indictment and turns it downright deranged-- it's almost Tricky-esque. The Field and Four Tet offer the only moments of relative hope with tracks that lift more than pummel. Four Tet even makes that "artichoke heart" line go down easy, with xylophones and pillowed drums sliding into a future with fewer head-scratching surprises, fewer reasons to throw things at the television.
And, of course, In Rainbows' secret weapon was the H word our current president is so fond of. The Eraser is relevant now, but-- specifically at this moment, days away from that crowded Mall-- it also sounds like a relic. Even Kanye made sure to graft the record's sonics onto something-- searing, thoughtless emotion-- more evergreen than dystopian riddles. Economic crash withstanding, Radiohead turned out to be quite prescient, coupling their most openhearted LP with a new era of genuine compassion (maybe?). The Eraser Rmxs is an insulated, paranoid, technically proficient reminder of a time when it seemed like there was no way out. "This is fucked up," repeats a pitch-shifted Yorke on Vogel's Bonus Beat "Black Swan" mix. And it is. But not as much as before.
