There are now so many good new games to play, as well as plenty of titles sitting in my backlog, that I didn’t expect to find myself thinking about 2021’s Kid A Mnesia Exhibition on the PS5.
But I recently sat down with a strong drink or two to play it through, while stellar titles like Hollow Knight Silksong sit half-ignored on my Steam Deck.
And it’s a game, or really a virtual experience, that I recommend you also take for a spin. Of course, that’s with the caveat that you’ll probably need to be a Radiohead fan first to get the most out of it.
Let’s dig into some context before I go any further. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Radiohead were one of the biggest bands, offering somewhat angst-ridden lyrics wrapped up in punchy guitar-forward music that contrasted against the swaggering rock-and-roll of the likes of Oasis. But after their first three albums, Radiohead moved away from the alt-rock sound perhaps best captured in the seminal OK Computer, to a more electronic, textured sound with a bigger focus on abstract lyrics.
Released in April 2000, Kid A was seen as a polarising album for Radiohead; some embraced the creativity and oddness, while others saw it as alienating and perhaps a bit pretentious. 2001’s Amnesiac, which uses additional tracks initially made for Kid A, continued this new sound. Even as a fan of electronica and abstract sounds, I definitely find both Kid A and Amnesiac to be the harder of Radiohead’s albums to listen to; you’re more likely to enjoy listening to them as whole albums than picking out individual tracks.
But with that in mind, I think their weirdness and creativity, with a sprinkle of perceived pretension, make the two albums a great foundation on which to build a game. And thanks to a partnership with Epic Games, and a mass of album artwork and other visual bits the band had some 20 years ago, a strange walking-simulator game was born.
That’s what Kid A Mnesia Exhibition is all about. You start out in a dense wood, with trees rendered in a scratchy, sketched art style, but then find your way to a bunker where the musical and visual experience kicks in.
Weird wonder
While there’s nothing to directly interact with in terms of hitting buttons, you can dive down all manner of paths into rooms and corridors that play particular songs off Kid A and Amnesiac in creative ways.
For example, one room sees you step into a space with a load of paper pages featuring sketches and lyrics, accompanied by a modified version of the song In Limbo. As the song progresses, these pages explode in a whirlwind of paper, to me capturing the feeling of being a bit lost or disoriented amidst a mass of ideas, concepts, and thoughts.
A similar experience is given in a large room with a big box in the middle, accompanied by the underlying bass and electronic tones extracted from Packed Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box.
Surrounding the box are small squares featuring the head of a cartoon bear with large teeth – a bit of art the band came up with – that a player can stand on to extract of other elements of the song, from lyrics to distorted guitar bits.
It’s all rather odd, but captures a bit of the claustrophobic feeling of someone trapped in a job, situation, or environment due to societal pressures of an indifferent modern life; at least going by my interpretation.
The whole game, which should probably only take around two hours to go thorough is packed with moments like this, with some that really bloom into something special.
That’s if you’re willing to embrace the abstract nature of this stage of Radiohead and a whole host of weird visuals, which are as much on you to extract meaning from or to simply absorb as part of the ride.
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At the end of the exhibition, I felt like I’d had a really interesting, intriguing, and a bit freaky experience of Kid A and Amnesiac that felt so much fresher than simply listening to the albums. And it’s definitely an experience I encourage you to check out, especially as it’s free on the PS5, PC, and Mac.
I also think that the power of the Unreal Engine opens up the path for more such game and music minglings.
Obviously, music already has a huge place in gaming, but if the Kid A Mnesia Exhibition is anything to go by, I think other bands and musicians have more scope than ever to bring their work to life in a virtual world. And I love to see others follow in Radiohead’s footsteps… even if they don’t go anywhere quite as weird.
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