The Smile took to twitter today to announce a curious looking new video for their song “Pana-vision”. A teasing nine-second clip with the Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy in character as Tommy Shelby, ominously flipping a coin seemingly in the middle of nowhere was posted on their Twitter feed. The coin lands on heads; he sighs and disappears into the shepherd hut behind. What could this all mean? For the more perceptive amongst us, it won’t come as much of a surprise as the song debuted in the season finale of Peaky Blinders back in April, with the song appearing online a few hours before the episode.
Coming tomorrow, 2pm BST.https://t.co/EenDATd51l pic.twitter.com/Ay9ocdlUTi
— The Smile (@thesmiletheband) July 19, 2022
Back in February director, Anthony Bryne told NME, “Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed some original stuff. I’m over the moon about all of that. The music has always been really important historically, and I was keen to bring a dramatic score into it. We’re using that much more in this season. It’s a much heavier season so the score is taking things in a very different direction.”
Talking about the music for the show, Murphy said, “You just know when a song is ‘Peaky’. The artists are outsiders. They have resisted the tyranny of the mainstream, shall we say?” Yorke and Greenwood have spent a career running from the mainstream success of the Radiohead song “Creep” and despite playing stadium shows the world over would happily wear the title of outsiders.
The Smile came into fruition over lockdown from Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood’s desire to make music together, and they soon were playing Glastonbury’s Live at Worthy Farm in 2021 with Son’s of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. The band’s debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention, was released via digital formats on 13th May 2022 and given a physical release on 17th June 2022 via XL Recordings. The track was produced by long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich first worked with Yorke and Greenwood on Radiohead’s second album The Bends as an engineer and then becoming co-producer on Ok Computer.
A Light for Attracting Attention received universal acclaim receiving 86 out of 100 on Metacritic and Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork saying that the album is, “unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project.”
Since their appearance at Worthy Farm, “Pana-Vision” is the fourth single to be released from the band and is the fourth track to be taken from A Light for Attracting Attention. Tyler Golsen of Far Out magazine gave the song 7.2 out of 10 saying, “The new track is the most nebulous track that The Smile have officially released so far.” The song is a definite shift in tone from the opening three tracks and showcases Greenwood’s film composer alter ego.
“Pana-vision” originally appeared on April 3 2022 with an animated video directed by Sabrina Nichols, using imagery by Yorke and Radiohead artist Stanley Donwood.
Thr Smile’s only UK show will be at London’s All Points East, tickets available here.
28/08/2020 – All Points East – London
