Drummer Philip Selway confirmed that Radiohead is going into the studio with a "full schedule," and that they want to finish its new album this fall. Perhaps we can hope that we could be listening to it by the end of the year.
The yet untitled album is the group's 9th following 2011's The King Of Limbs. Since that release, the band has been working in "periods" according to earlier statements by guitarist Jonny Greenwood, adding that getting everyone back into the studio and restarting the process "took a lot of time."
NME reached out to Selway, who confirmed the band is getting busy this September with studio time on the new effort.
"We've got quite a busy autumn coming up," Selway said. "We want to finish a record and that's where we're at. We're just launching ourselves into it."
Greenwood said the band is reworking the 1996 song "Lift" for the new album, as they usually incorporate a reshaped old song on each new album.
Selway noted the band's "short attention span," so whatever happens after this brief recording period is probably what we're ultimately going to hear on the record.
The band is no stranger to odd album release formats. Lead singer Thom Yorke released his latest solo album, 2014's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, was released on the same day as its announcement via the peer-to-peer file sharing network BitTorrent behind the Bundles initiative in which fans paid $6 for the files. King Of Limbs was one of the first ever, major surprise release albums. But, perhaps most infamously, 2007's In Rainbows was released on a pay what you want system (which included the option to pay nothing at all). Sales figures were never released but 1.4 million downloads were counted in the first days of the release.
No matter what comes of these studio sessions, a new wacky way to consume the band's music will likely surface and it's not crazy to think that we might break the endless stream of Christmas songs with new Radiohead tunes.
For a little irony, listen to Radiohead's "No Surprises" below.
