\n\tOn a fittingly dreary evening in a fittingly industrial corner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Radiohead\u2019s Kid A Mnesia Motion Picture House opened its two-month New York run on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe fact that a healthy crowd assembled for the immersive multimedia art installation at the Agger Fish Building \u2014 a warehouse that, somewhat recently, has been a hub for marine products, though it has none of the smells this background would suggest \u2014 despite the less-than-ideal circumstances was a testament not just to Radiohead\u2019s continued relevance, but the way that its visionary 2000 masterpiece Kid A and its almost-as-good 2001 follow-up Amnesiac still resonate with audiences.<\/p>\n
\n\tKid A Mnesia debuted at Coachella last month, in a bespoke 17,000-square-foot bunker with 38-foot ceilings that promoter Goldenvoice built beneath the festivalgrounds specifically for the installation. But naturally, the star power of headliners Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G, not to mention the lineup\u2019s deep roster of buzzworthy artists, dominated headlines following the Southern California fest. With multi-week runs lined up in Chicago, Mexico City and San Francisco through January 2027, the band is now offering fans the opportunity to immerse in the exhibit without ponying up for a three-day festival.<\/p>\n
\n\tMuch of the material at Kid A Mnesia isn\u2019t new, per se, and traces back to the 2021 reissue campaign of the same name that featured the 2000 and 2001 albums, plus a disc of additional material from the sessions. The installation\u2019s centerpiece is a 75-minute film \u2014 which premiered in 2021 as a download for PS5, PC and Mac \u2014 directed by Sean Evans and featuring the art of frontman Thom Yorke and the band\u2019s longtime visual associate Stanley Donwood. Much of the art contained in the film, and posted in the rooms adjacent to the larger area where it is screened, appears in the 2022 book Kid A Mnesia: A Book of Radiohead Artwork.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut for Radiohead diehards \u2013\u00a0and newcomers interested in one of the most singular rock artists of the last four decades (on Wednesdays, the event offers a 30% discount for students) \u2014 the exhibition presents all of this media in grandiose scale, allowing total immersion into the era that many fans and critics consider to be the band\u2019s peak. Read on for the best moments from Kid A Mnesia. (For those planning a visit to Kid A Mnesia, this post contains minor spoilers about the exhibit and film.)<\/p>\n
\tThe Physical Exhibit Plays The Long Game<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen audiences enter, the exhibit\u2019s two-hour time allotment begins with a half-hour to wander the compound, where the rooms and halls surrounding the film theater feature posters of lyrics and drawings; rows of old, stacked televisions; and statues of varying sizes representing some of the characters in the film. Radiohead experts will immediately clock the iconography, but it\u2019s a disorienting experience, heightened by an ambient hum and faint snippets of Kid A\u2018s \u201cMotion Picture Soundtrack\u201d and \u201cIdioteque.\u201d The film rewards close scrutiny beforehand, though; as various motifs from the exhibit pop up during the movie, viewers would be forgiven for replicating the \u201cLeonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen\u201d meme<\/a> from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.<\/p>\n \tA Novel Way Of Watching A Film<\/p>\n \n\tSure, its now commonplace for movie theaters to have comfortable, reclining chairs for audiences. But Kid A Mnesia is something else entirely. In the movie viewing area, the floor\u2019s light padding extends a few feet up slightly slanted walls. Four large padded benches form a square in the center of the room, and gigantic screens on each of the four walls tilt slightly downward toward the audience. Before the playback begins, screens encourage fans to \u201csit, lay or lean anywhere\u201d \u2013\u00a0and the layout is conducive to all three. All told, it\u2019s like a cross between Sphere\u2019s hyperstimulating environment and the little rooms at art museums where films play on loop.<\/p>\n \tSurrender To The Vibes<\/p>\n \n\tA description of the Kid A Mnesia book says it \u201cchronicles [Yorke and Donwood\u2019s] obsessions at the time: minotaurs, genocide, maps, globalization, monsters, pylons, damns, volcanoes, locusts, lightning, helicopters, Hiroshima, show homes and ring roads.\u201d The film is a heady amalgam of most of those things, and while there is a loose plot \u2013\u00a0a minotaur discovers and journeys through an odd hidden world full of supernatural colors and mysterious creatures with unclear motives \u2013 trying to untangle more specifics is a fool\u2019s errand. Nevertheless, it\u2019s an engrossing watch, not just because of the music, but because of the uneasiness it evokes.<\/p>\n \tNigel Godrich Is Still The GOAT<\/p>\n \n\tThe revered British producer \u2013 who has produced all of Radiohead\u2019s albums since 1997\u2019s OK Computer, as well as Yorke\u2019s three solo records \u2013 is credited as the producer for the film\u2019s music, but that\u2019s not just because he produced the albums that soundtrack it. For the movie, Godrich created new mixes in spatial audio, presenting these familiar songs in fresh ways; some go longer, some go shorter, several add or lose pieces of instrumentation. It\u2019s sly studio wizardry to tinker with such well-known tracks without losing their essence \u2013\u00a0but while moving them forward creatively.<\/p>\n \tDeep Cuts Get Their Due<\/p>\n \n\tTo many Radiohead obsessives, the idea that any song from Kid A or Amnesiac, or even their overall sessions, could be considered a \u201cdeep cut\u201d is laughable. And yet, some of the musical highlights of Kid A Mnesia arrive at unexpected moments, often aided by producer Nigel Godrich\u2019s souped-up versions: Kid A\u2018s nearly ambient \u201cTreefingers\u201d becomes an enveloping sonic bath; the sun-fried guitars of Amnesiac\u2018s \u201cHunting Bears\u201d are particularly stark when they arrive well into the film, after an hour of largely electronic instrumentation and at a climatic moment in the narrative. But to the fans who used \u201cHow To Disappear Completely\u201d for a bathroom break: shame on you.<\/p>\n \tResonant A Quarter-Century Later<\/p>\n \n\tSome Y2K aesthetics may have made a comeback, but the era\u2019s pop culture has generally aged poorly; Kid A and Amnesiac have not. Long praised for their treatment of themes like consumerism, alienation and technology run amok, both albums remain thought-provoking \u2013 and 25 years later, with the recontextualization offered by Kid A Mnesiac, they scan as eerily prescient. A milestone anniversary is always a convenient excuse for this type of exhibit or activation. But for a band that has always fixated on society\u2019s slow creep into dystopia, Kid A Mnesia\u2018s timing \u2013 following a pandemic, amid war and economic calamity, as artificial intelligence and other new technologies threaten to upend daily life \u2013\u00a0feels more deliberate.<\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n \t<\/a><\/p>\n Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox<\/p>\n