Thom Yorke's The Eraser Rmxs comes out on CD in America

The Eraser Rmxs, nine remixes of songs from Thom Yorke's 2006 solo album, is out this month as a full-length CD in the US on XL, after a long way round. The remixes were sold as downloads in December 2007, then on three 12-inch singles a week apart from 21 January 2008. The only CD of all nine until now came out in Japan on 27 August 2008.

Eight of The Eraser's nine songs are remixed, the title track left out. Cristian Vogel does “Black Swan” twice. His second go, the “Bonus Beat” mix, closes the CD at almost eight minutes, with Yorke's voice gone apart from one pitch-shifted line, repeated.

Ryan Dombal, reviewing it for Pitchfork, gives it 6.7 and puts the remixes being overlooked the first time down to timing, since In Rainbows had come out two months before and fans were still absorbed in it. He rates Burial's track the best thing on the record, and says The Bug pushes “Harrowdown Hill” somewhere near Tricky. Jory Spadea of Spectrum Culture gives it two out of five, arguing that The Eraser never needed reworking, though he rates the Modeselektor and Surgeon mixes as good as the originals.

Spadea thinks Four Tet's “Atoms for Peace” may beat Yorke's own, and Dombal counts it and The Field's “Cymbal Rush” as the only hopeful moments on the record. Dombal calls Vogel's closing “Black Swan” silly, and for Spadea it is the low point.

Tracklist