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The Smile announce new vinyl-only live EP, ‘Europe: Live Recordings 2022’

Thom Yorke's supergroup have plucked live cuts from last summer's European shows

By Joe Goggins

The Smile performing on the stage of the Lab during the 56th Montreux Jazz Festival, 12th of July 2022, (c) Marc Ducrest
The Smile toured Europe last summer. (Photo: Marc Ducrest/Montreux Jazz Festival)

The Smile have announced a new EP of live recordings, which will be available exclusively on vinyl.

The three-piece, comprised of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood as well as Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, will release Europe: Live Recordings 2022 on March 10, via XL Recordings. The group have already released a seven-track digital live album taken from their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland last July, but will now follow it up on wax with an EP made up of tracks recorded in various European cities.

You can see the full track listing below; it includes five songs from the band’s debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention, as well as a cover of Yorke’s 2009 solo track ‘FeelingPulledApartByHorses’, which was closed the band’s encore on most of their European gigs last year. That tour, their first ever, is now set to be followed up by a North American jaunt that will take them to 14 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

The news comes after Yorke revealed that the trio have already been pressing ahead with new music. In addition to material from A Light for Attracting Attention, The Smile’s sets last summer included three unreleased songs, ‘Bodies Laughing’, ‘Friend of a Friend’ and ‘Colours Fly’. Quote-tweeting a clip of the latter track performed at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival last June, which was shared by the band’s official account, Yorke said: “new one …  work in progress … there are a few ..”

The news that The Smile are working on new material, however, apparently does not discount the possibility of a return for Radiohead. In an interview with Spin earlier this month, drummer Philip Selway confirmed that the Oxford five-piece were set to reconvene early this year. “We’re going to get together at the start of [2023], and I’m sure we’re going to start looking at other ideas for what comes next. Hail to the Thief — it’s a long time since that record, isn’t it?”

The Smile – Europe: Live Recordings 2022

  1. ‘The Opposite’
  2. ‘Thin Thing’
  3. ‘FeelingPulledApartByHorses’
  4. ‘The Same’
  5. ‘Waving a White Flag’
  6. ‘Free in the Knowledge’