The Smile (band)

The Smile at the Factory in Deep Ellum, Dallas, December 2022

The Smile made their debut in a surprise performance for the concert video Live at Worthy Farm, produced by Glastonbury Festival and streamed on May 22, 2021. The performance was recorded in secret earlier that week and announced on the day of the stream.[7] The band performed eight songs, with Yorke and Greenwood on guitar, bass, Moog synthesiser and Rhodes piano.[9]

Yorke performed a Smile song, "Free in the Knowledge", at the Letters Live event at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in October 2021.[10] On January 29 and 30, 2022, the Smile performed to an audience for the first time at three shows at Magazine, London, which were livestreamed.[11] They played in the round, and debuted several tracks, including "Speech Bubbles", "A Hairdryer", "Waving a White Flag" and "The Same".[12] The shows also included performances of "Open the Floodgates",[11] which Yorke first performed in 2010,[13] and a cover of the 1979 Joe Jackson single "It's Different for Girls".[12]

In NME, James Balmont gave the London show four out of five, describing it as "meticulous, captivating stuff".[14] In the Guardian, Kitty Empire gave it four out of five, writing that "the Smile are most musically convincing when they stretch farther away from Radiohead",[15] while Alexis Petridis gave it three, saying it was "intriguing rather than dazzling, intermittently spellbinding, filled with fascinating ideas that don't always coalesce".[16]

On 20 April 2022, the Smile announced their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. It was released digitally through XL Recordings on 13 May, followed by a retail release on 17 June,[17] and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart.[18] It received acclaim;[19] the Pitchfork critic Ryan Dombal wrote that it was "instantly, unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project".[20] The first single, "You Will Never Work in Television Again", was released on streaming platforms on 5 January 2022.[21] It was followed by "The Smoke",[22] "Skrting on the Surface",[23] "Pana-vision",[24] "Free in the Knowledge",[25] and "Thin Thing".[26]

On 16 May, the Smile began a tour of Europe and North America.[27][28] The tour included performances of the unreleased song "Just Eyes and Mouth", Yorke's 2009 single "FeelingPulledApartByHorses" and new material.[29][30] The band were joined for some songs by the saxophonist Robert Stillman.[31] A second North American tour began in mid-2023, including the Smile's first show in Mexico City[32] and a headlining slot at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.[33]

On 14 December 2022, the Smile released a digital EP, The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022), with songs from their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland.[34] On 10 March 2023, they released a limited-edition vinyl EP, Europe: Live Recordings 2022, which includes a performance of "FeelingPulledApartByHorses".[32]

In March 2023, the Smile confirmed that they were seven weeks into recording a second album.[35] Greenwood said in June that the album was about working within the limits of a three-person band, and that they were still working through a backlog of ideas generated during the pandemic.[35]

On 20 June, the Smile released a non-album single, "Bending Hectic", featuring strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra.[36] It was produced by Sam Petts-Davies and recorded in Abbey Road Studios, London.[37] The Smile first performed "Bending Hectic" in July 2022, when Yorke said he had written the lyrics on the same day.[38] Stereogum described it as an "epic that starts out soft and quiet and builds into a splendorous stomping beast".[39]