Viewing Hours for the Self: A Visit with The Smile’s Wall of Eyes
Abstract(ion)
Smarter people than me have unpacked the nuances and dimensions of the “self.” Are we an innate being of some kind or are we some sort of composite crafted through our connections with the world? In other words, are we independent or a product/reflection/refraction of our interactions?
For much of our species’s existence we could denote this as the difference between something equivalent to public life and private life. Taken a step further, we are almost two beings: a private self and a public self. Now, in the advent of technology, the all-consuming labyrinth of connections we have at our fingertips and in the spaces that were historically our own (your SMART TV or bluetooth speaker, the fridge connected to your home internet, etc.), the private has never been more susceptible to the eyes and influence of the public. Can a private self exist in these dynamics?
Introduced
The Smile has the distinction of being both Radiohead and not being Radiohead. Though consisting of the two most prominent members of Radiohead, Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, the band takes some of the signature eccentricity of Yorke’s vocals and Greenwood’s layered instrumentation and add Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner on percussion to craft a sound that creates something new, a more ethereal and patient sound.
Though the band sounds, at times, like Radiohead, The Smile is definitely its own entity, no matter how much I’ve confused the two when thinking about this album. Their sophomore effort, Wall of Eyes is proof positive The Smile have their own unique DNA, even if there is a shade of vocal similarity or the similar thump of keys being played against an orchestral swell. This project, however, feels more comfortable, willing to let the grip and driving force of Radiohead’s work see the sun and breathe a little more. A large part of this is the layered and intricate drum grooves on Skinner’s part; the percussive lines are always underneath and commenting throughout the song. They are strong additions, but they always meld into music, rather than becoming a focal point. The band’s sound, in fact, is so balanced that rarely feels like one element is the focus. Despite moments of tuned up sound, this album feels particularly subdued. I couldn’t escape feeling like I was being told a story meant to be whispered. That story? An examination of the private versus public self.
What is Whispered is Meant for You Alone?
The title Wall of Eyes first evoked the concept of surveillance, but I quickly realized that surveillance is something that creates a paranoia and aggression. That sound is too high drama for a group like The Smile. This album is crafted on balance and patience, even when it is turning up the noise.
As I continued listening to the album and observing the ways this patience created a sense of place in the music, I began to notice that, rather than being “watched,” the concept of being “seen” was addressed throughout the piece, though it was paired with more the concept of being seen through sharing. Despite the concept of sharing, the songs, both lyrically and musically, express an ethereal sense of doubt, feeling like some sort of sparse moments meant for a singular entity’s reflection.
The disconnect of sharing and self ties back to the nature of being seen. Rather than some sort of nefarious agent of control doing the watching, The Smile seems to be addressing the ways our public-facing self interfaces with the outside world. Equally concerning to them: What is happening to our private self?
We have private and public versions of ourselves that assert themselves in their appropriate spaces when the situation arises; each version is a piece of the overall self and neither can suggest the totality of a person without considering the other side. In our world where connection is hardwired into private spaces, the private self has never had less space and is constantly in conversation with the will and demands of its public counterpart. Wall of Eyes is the requiem for the private self, or at the very least, the lament of the private self: how it struggles to exist in a world where the public version of the self is or must always be engaged.
The Self in Flux
The title track opens the album by immediately referencing the way a “wall of eyes” not only monitors the self, but also is reflected in the individual via their own “hollow” eyes. The Smile is pointing out the stakes of said interactions, namely the way being seen/watched creates a performance that weakens the individual in question. The music itself is filled with a steady, subdued groove of drum and bass creating space while a gentle strummed guitar and string section intersect. Despite the lyrics noting the connection to a public-facing posture, the musical elements of the track are inviting the listener into the close whisperings of a dear friend. The song inhabits a sense of strain in the face of something impersonal but contrasts it with intimate-sounding musical accompaniment.
Returning to the lyrical content, the title track invites the listener to “strap yourself in,” invoking the sense of restraint as well as a potential loss of control. There’s also references to the idea of celebration, specifically the image of raising a toast to being undeserving. The public self is both limitless in reach and in potential influence, trapping the private in a sense of space and expectation. The title track sets the terms for what the rest of the album will do: grapple with the public self’s conflict with and dominance over the private self.
The exertion of the public self’s strength continues throughout the album. The ending of “Read the Room” is a repetition of the phrase “Everybody thinks so,” emphasizing the strength of the collective gaze. The end sequence is also musically the most open and even rhythms of the song. This is a major shift in tone and arrangement as the song’s earlier guitar line and lyrical energy are spent seeming to assert its own autonomy through a more intricate rhythm. The rhythm of the guitar line itself is winding, yet uneven, and the lyrics of the opening verse suggest a bratty defiance of not being able to be “arsed.” The chorus amps up this assertion, mimicking a nursery rhyme in tone but asserting “I am going to count to three/keep that s*** away from me.” By ending the song with a turn to the most even groove and a call to the collective outsider view, rather than the individual, it only emphasizes the weakness of the private self in the face of collective power.
“Under Our Pillows” continues this notion of the public self’s power for providing “such delights” that “wait, under your pillow” and suggest the idea of sleep as an act of willful submission. The joy that can be found in a dream is meant to parallel to existing primarily as a public self. That idea continues until the midpoint of the song as the lyrics implore the private self by saying, “give yourself freely/nowadays, everyone’s for sharing.” It’s not even a command as much as a statement of fact. Not only is the act of submitting to the will of the collective seen to be some kind of delight, there’s a compelling connection to do so without reservation as everyone else is doing it.
“Friend of a Friend,” though certainly a commentary on economic disparity, also has roots in exploring the possibility of doing “anything” by fitting into a preconceived mold of some kind. Additionally, the lyrical concerns tie themselves at some distance to the concept of friends and “friends of a friend.” Even though the intentions of these friends are obfuscated by unclear motives, there seems to be communion of some sort. The friends are outside balconies, and the best hope for desirable communion between them is to embrace an “altered state” where the barriers of homes are opened. Musically, the song itself jangles with falsetto and piano heavy-melody lines, balancing a lament and wistful sense with the allure of a community and sharing that is too strong to ignore.
The Private Self’s Wandering Lament
“Friend of a Friend” is not a complete ode to the public self. Despite the siren call of connection, the question of separation, “flimsy balconies,” and “friends step[ing] out to talk and wave, and catch a piece of sun” implies the speaker in the song is not fully on the level of those on the balcony, despite their acknowledgement as a “friend” and their neighborly communion, the speaker also sees the balcony as a flimsy, maybe perilous structure. Further complicating this idea, the speaker later alters the chorus to find the speaker on a balcony themself, using a communal pronoun of “our” to describe the ownership of said balcony and now takes “a tumble” as the earlier mentioned friends are still waving and looking for the sun, unaware or uncaring of the plight of the fallen friend (and speaker). This wrinkle is employed to try to equate the private self’s sense of rebellion or at least its ability to see the distortion of the situation, despite its sense of place in the setting and the allure of the environment where it finds itself.
The notion that the private self is existing but unable to fully acknowledge its plight is also present in the standout track “Teleharmonic.” The opening verse employs the image of an isolated fish caught in a dragnet and the doubt of the speaker in the chorus as it questions “Where are you taking me?” Ironically, the private self is not only fascinated by uncertainty, but it also seems to draw allusions to some kind of ending rife with uncertainty. The second verse makes reference to Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” a poem that lambasts those who worry how the world will end, but also allows itself to bask in the uncertainty by addressing that both ends will be acceptable. Here, the mention just posits the opposition of fire and ice in abundance. Right afterwards, there’s a reference to the Crucifixion of Jesus. While death is assured from a crucifixion, consider that the aftermath of Jesus’s death is a point of dispute among the Abrahamic religions. Sure, this is a neat bit of referencing death and the end, two things that are assured for everyone, but suggesting an individual dying with an uncertain means or considering what will come after death (not just for Jesus, but for any of us) is right in line with the private self being unaware of its future.
The drum and bass sections of “Teleharmonic” are also among the tightest and most expansive moments on the album. Despite being locked in a rolling, almost bossa nova like beat, it is never overpowering. I actually find the rhythm section, and this isn’t a shot at Radiohead’s excellent drummer Phil Selway, to be integral to the meaning of these songs. Skinner shapes so much of the pacing and energy and fills them out with a jazzy, smoother rhythm. Again, some of that is because The Smile aren’t making a straight-ahead rock album, but it simultaneously stands out and blends into the whole song, much like the notion of the multiple selves existing side by side.
I’d be remiss to leave out my previous points about “Read the Room,” notably the fact that it exists as multiple movements. In the first movement of the song, we see the private self asserting its presence via the rhythmic intricacies in the guitar line. I think this is especially important considering how the song itself is sequenced between “Teleharmonic” and “Under Our Pillows.” I found “Read the Room” and its two-part structure as the moment (or reveal) where the private and public selves are fully put on display for the audience. The next few songs themselves have the two selves interacting and noting something being amiss, but the real interaction has yet to arrive.
The Fight to be the Self
The detente between private and public self actually resolves itself in the next two tracks. “I Quit!” is light on lyrics and moves through the most wandering instrumentation on the album. Yorke’s vocal performance is particularly sharp here as he vacillates between plaintive reflection and drawing out the lines to reflect the unknown direction of the self. The song repeats ideas of endings with imagery of ghosts, leaning windmills, and “the end of the trip.” The images suggest a limbo/purgatory, a Quixotic quest, and an overall finality. The song keeps up this idea of unfinished/unfinishable quests, but tries to make some kind of peace with the nature of something being both unending and ending.
The final portion of the song ripples with airy repetitions of “To wherever it goes” to suggest some sort of willingness but lack of knowledge regarding a certain outcome. The song culminates with a slight variation “and wherever it lies” and suggests that the finality, although unknown, connects to the ideas of something being done but also being unending. This something, though not quite realized, has some kind of fixed point where it will finish.
The fixed point in question is the public and private self’s eventual meeting. The penultimate “Bending Hectic” showcases a return to the extended metaphor of the car the audience was strapped into during the title track. Now the driver is recognizing the ways the two selves exert pressure, and we see this manifest in the speaker’s use of pronouns, both singular and plural, switching at will within each verse. In one moment, the driver is in direct control of the car, using singular pronouns to describe the slowing of the vehicle through downshifting and slamming on the brakes. As the car continues to move, the speaker recognizes the car and its inhabitants via the collective pronouns of “we’re” and “our.” Anytime this is mentioned, it is in the peril of the car coming to an end or losing control of some kind.
Tellingly, the language of control is singular but ruin is meant as some kind of collective. The music is slow, unspooling in crescendoing cymbal flourishes and chord bendings, fluctuating around Yorke’s slowly building vocals. As the song hits its peak, the lyrics assert a moment where the self is “letting go of the wheel.” The song’s energy hinges on this part as the instrumentals build and distort, moving past the gentle in favor of the heaviest, most distorted music on the album.
I want to spend some real estate emphasizing the nature of the idea of the self letting go of the wheel. On one hand, this is a moment of utter ruin, nothing good can come from the loss of control, however, I think viewing this as the private self abdicating its struggle, or at least accepting that struggle is one that is beyond the means of the private self to fight on its own. Even more interesting is the way the song reacts to the idea of letting go, the build surrounding the moment is also peppered with the concepts of slings and arrows, but the last lyrics of the song are the speaker affirming his determination to “force” himself to “turn.” Has the private self tried to win out? Can it?
The Aftermath: You Know Me?
Fittingly, the closing track “You Know Me!” utilizes the image of a boxer in the throes of a fight. The public has made the speaker transparent, going as far to wield “X-ray specs” watching the fledgling fighter. The fighter, being offered advice, seems set in his state, even the chorus is a simple “Always, you know me.” This is surrender to being known. And then, just as the imagery begins to indicate defeat, the last lines invert the chorus, “Don’t think, you know me/Don’t think, that I am everything you say.” Are these the dying words of the private self? Is it possible that it is a defiant, last shot into the blood-soaked spitoon? Going out on its own terms in this, a requiem? Or, is it the sign that the self can exist after all?
Requiem for A Self?
I’m sure there is a special irony that we’re considering if a private self can exist by looking at the work of a very public band from the perspective of a writer who is, no matter how small scale, trying to get people to read his ideas. These are primary examples of the public facing self. We are also talking about a band that is in the family tree of Radiohead, at once very much the same band in some ways, while also not even close in others. Are we looking at some sort of statement that implies some sort of take on their identity? Wherever the private self exists at the end of this album, as the track fades away, know that The Smile wants the audience to see the way we watch, are watched, and what it really means to us deep down inside, if such a thing really is possible anymore. Regardless, it’s damn good funeral music.
