The new Thriller it isn’t!

Whatever else you might have expected from a video tie-in for the new album -The King of Limbs –  few would have imagined we’d be seeing a mad solo dance by Thom Yorke.

Radiohead could have commissioned a moody piece to go with this song (Lotus Flower)  to make them look cool. Instead I really like how they continually strive to wrong-foot the public’s preconceptions about  the band.

The digital release of the album also  has all the journalists frantically trying to be the first to post reviews cognisant of the fact that have not been given the privilege of hearing it in advance of the fans. Putting up a review after just one listen is absurd but this is effectively what many critics feel forced to do.

It looks for all the world like Thom Yorke’s performance is spontaneous so I was surprised to learn that it was plotted by British choreographer Wayne McGregor (it was directed by Garth Jennings).

One of the comments on You Tube says that these are the kind of moves you make after a few pints and many think it looks like he’s experiencing a kind of epilepsy.

It makes a bit more sense when you learn that McGregor is renowned for his physically challenging “Choreography and Cognition” and that he wants to explore the relationship between the brain and the body. His latest piece for his company Random Dance is called Entity – and Wiki says his style is characterised by “dynamic, sharp, often fragmented and often sinuously fluid movement”.

I’m not sure I’d call Thom Yorke’s movements ‘sinuous’ exactly but they are certainly fragmented.

For me, he could almost be auditioning for a Beckett play and there’s a strange beauty in these awkward movements – I think it’s a really brave piece to put out and I’ll never feel bad about my dancing skills again.

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