First listens of The King of Limbs presented a cohesive and concise record. As time passed, however, at least for me personally, the cohesion was revealed as a lack of variation, and the concision as an unhelpful brevity. What’s more, the things that appealed to me about Radiohead - the powerful guitar rock of The Bends, the cinematic, inhuman bleakness of Kid A and Amnesiac, the colourful mingling of the two on Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows - were absent. The King of Limbs daringly eschewed reference to these previous styles, but with little pay off, as it seems to fall short in many respects. The subtle motorik rhythms lack the development and duration to have the hypnotic effect of kraut, but also lack the weight or production value to have any visceral dancefloor appeal. The latter of these shortcomings is where this record, TKOL RMX 1234567, comes in. It's the electronic finesse not quite reached on the original album that's most obviously restored and explored on these two discs, as more specialised electronic musicians bring to life the raw essence of Yorke’s songwriting in their own styles.
Regarding danceability, lack thereof, some of the mixes certainly address this. Modeselektor’s mix of ‘Magpie’ has an awesomely powerful four-to-the-floor bass drum and an otherwise stripped down arrangement, and coupled with the vocal treatment – frequently Thom’s vocal line is digitally harmonised in perfect 4ths, giving it a robotic menace – this is a stark and visceral dance track. Similarly, Shed’s ‘Little By Little’ is granular, minimal and hypnotic in its repetition. SBTRKT and Brokenchord provide excellent dubstep-paced mixes of ‘Lotus Flow’ and ‘Give Up The Ghost’, respectively.
There being merely eight tracks to The King of Limbs is a double-edged sword for the remix album. It can be a tedious start-end listen, since the same vocal tracks are being used over and over, however it does in a way grant more licence to the remixers, who can stray further from the originals, the limited material to work with being sound justification. For example, Illum Sphere’s ‘Codex’ hardly resembles the original, seeing abstract electronic vocal manipulation reminiscent of Radiohead B-side ‘Kinetic’. Some mixes have so much licence on the part of the remixer they become originals in their own right – Lone’s ‘Feral’ remix is in parts completely devoid of audio from or even reference to the original song, presenting as standa-Lone (yeah, that’s right) material. Another example is Thriller Houseghost’s mix of ‘Give Up The Ghost’ that opens the second disc, though this is too far from the original to be of much interest, repetitive and tiresome.
TKOL RMX 1234567 varies in quality, as all various artist releases are destined to, but there is no shortage of standout tracks on here, and its release is a called for antidote to the original album’s meagreness. The songs are explored in a way that they just weren't in their original fairly half-baked forms.