Listening alone, together: The Smile's “Wall of Eyes”

When was the last time you sat down and listened to a music album previously unknown to you, front-to-back, without interruptions or distractions?

And, when was the last time you did so with 300 strangers?

It is Tuesday January 23rd, and I am among a group of 300 people to pour into Cinema 1 at Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam for Wall of Eyes: On Film, an evening orchestrated by The Smile (the band consisting of Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner) and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood).

When was the last time you sat down and listened to a music album previously unknown to you, front-to-back, without interruptions or distractions?

And, when was the last time you did so with 300 strangers?

It is Tuesday January 23rd, and I am among a group of 300 people to pour into Cinema 1 at Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam for Wall of Eyes: On Film, an evening orchestrated by The Smile (the band consisting of Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner) and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood).

The primary attraction this evening: a first listen to Wall of Eyes, the new album by The Smile, accompanied by animated visuals. After that, a flurry of music videos Paul Thomas Anderson previously directed for The Smile, Thom Yorke and Radiohead.

To start with, we’re shown eight minutes of silent studio footage: the band members playing, rehearsing, discussing, fidgeting, nodding and dancing to music we’ve yet to hear. A little awkward at first, the audience manages to settle into the imaginary groove after a few minutes — we’ve not yet heard any music, but Thom’s dancing here and Jonny’s plucking of strings there reveal a glimmer of what is to come, and eases us into what must be a novel experience to many of the people in attendance.

Despite my numerous visits to this cinema, I sit down in my chair feeling nervous and uneasy. Unlike at concerts, where I (mostly) know what to expect from the musicians, and know how to behave, this is new to me. I don’t know if the songs will receive any kind of introduction. I don’t know if we’re supposed to, allowed to, or will even want to discuss them in-between. Do we applaud? And, if so, who are we applauding — the cinema’s technicians? Or the band, who are absent? (Or, are they?)

The footage ends, and we dive straight into the album, with title track Wall of Eyes kicking off the proceedings. Wall of Eyes is one of the singles I’ve replayed endlessly before this evening, along with the two other singles the band has released before today. I breathe out, and I sink into my chair. Looking around, I see others doing similarly.

Projected on screen we see colourful visuals resembling the album artwork painted by Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood. They’re animated, and what happens on screen closely matches what happens in the music. When strings swell up, so do the visuals; when the music grows darker, colour bleeds from the screen, merging the music and visuals into some sort of living organism taking up its own space in the room.

When the first song ends, there is hardly a five second interval before the second starts, revealing how this is going to go for the next 40 or so minutes. No conversations, no distractions. Just every one of us plunging in headfirst, in silence.

As we dig deeper into the album — every song so densely layered that they feel like mini albums in and of themselves — I notice people absorbing the songs in a variety of ways. As a particular song swells up and gives me goosebumps, someone near me squirms in their seat and groans. A few chairs down, a man keeps nodding his head in a fury, carelessly shaking the chairs of his neighbours. Across from me, a woman nods along until the fourth song, where she loses track of the intricate rhythm the band has constructed. She smiles, leans back, and closes her eyes, appreciative of the craftsmanship at play.

While The Smile’s music is always rhythmic and undeniably danceable, tonight there is no dancing. There is no opportunity to get carried away by the collective sway you encounter standing shoulder-to-shoulder at a concert venue. We, the audience, while undoubtedly moved by the music, are unable to express ourselves through any movement beyond the nodding of our heads, or the tapping of our hands and feet, bound by the constraints of our seats and the unwritten rules of the cinema.

We are a live audience, but there is no live band. There are no unified roars of recognition, and there is no communal energy to spur the musicians forward — there are no musicians, and none of us have heard the music before. Instead, a collective hush embraces the room, and rather than an audience that interacts with a band, we are an audience in suspense, awaiting what sonic landscapes we find ahead of us, exploring the unknown in unison.

I find myself wanting to hum along wherever I can. I find myself wanting to play the drums on my upper legs. I find myself wanting to play the air guitar. I find myself wanting to exclaim something — anything — to those sitting aside from me, when each song ends. I find myself wanting to laugh, from a place of befuddled admiration, really, at the most intricately constructed bits of music, but all I can fathom is a smirk, or a wide grin, as I find myself wanting to not disturb anyone.

I find myself wanting to get a read on what everyone else in the room finds themselves wanting.

I find myself wanting to hum along wherever I can. I find myself wanting to play the drums on my upper legs. I find myself wanting to play the air guitar. I find myself wanting to exclaim something — anything — to those sitting aside from me, when each song ends. I find myself wanting to laugh, from a place of befuddled admiration, really, at the most intricately constructed bits of music, but all I can fathom is a smirk, or a wide grin, as I find myself wanting to not disturb anyone.

I find myself wanting to get a read on what everyone else in the room finds themselves wanting.

And then, all of a sudden, I don't.

My initial apprehension transforms into pure appreciation of the artistry on display and of the immersion provided by the music and its visual accompaniment. My wants disappear, and I want nothing to do with anyone in the room — I want them all to disappear as I listen to the music and transform the listening into an experience of my own, and as we pass the album's halfway mark and peek over its crest I feel elated, lunging forward, tumbling down the home stretch. This band, already, is one of my favourite bands, and I want to tell everyone about this evening, and this music, and how this experience made me feel as an individual.

Here I am, part of an audience absorbing music in absolute, uninterrupted solitude. I tap along with my foot, eyes closed, smiling. Smiling because I appreciate the music — the intricate constructions of the songs, the richly layered string arrangements, and the obscurity of the lyrics — but I smile, too, because I appreciate the moment — the uniqueness of a first listen in the company of strangers and the shared, silent appreciation for music and art, without any distractions.

Finally, once the evening ends, I applaud. We all applaud, somewhat reluctantly, because still we don't quite know who, or what, aside from the screen and the audio installation, we are applauding, and for a moment I wish the band members walked in through the main doors so I could applaud them, but instead I applaud the evening as a whole, organised by perhaps the only band that could actually make this experience, this foreign experience, work so well.

I applaud them for that. I applaud my individual experience of the music. And, I applaud the fact that each and every one of the 300 people in this room just experienced these eight songs in 300 different ways, together.

Finally, once the evening ends, I applaud. We all applaud, somewhat reluctantly, because still we don't quite know who, or what, aside from the screen and the audio installation, we are applauding, and for a moment I wish the band members walked in through the main doors so I could applaud them, but instead I applaud the evening as a whole, organised by perhaps the only band that could actually make this experience, this foreign experience, work so well.

I applaud them for that. I applaud my individual experience of the music. And, I applaud the fact that each and every one of the 300 people in this room just experienced these eight songs in 300 different ways, together.

Continue down the rabbit hole: read “On The Smile” by Iris Cuppen.

The full album is now available on The Smile's YouTube channel. On there, you'll find the music videos Paul Thomas Anderson directed for Wall of Eyes and Friend Of A Friend, as well as the animations we were shown on the big screen for the remaining six songs.