Radiohead in Studio

[obiwankobe]

Radiohead Back in Studio

Zach Vowell reports:
A month ago, initial excitement over the prospect of Radiohead updating us on their next album's recording progress via a group blog, Dead Air Space, quickly turned into uncomfortable anxiety when Thom Yorke wrote: "there are giant waves of self doubt crashing over me and if I could alleviate this with a simple pill...I think I would." That's some Nine Inch Nails shit right there.

Of course, not many people took it seriously because, well, that's just good ol' Thom, and we wouldn't have him any other way. Thom also blogged that exhaustion was beginning to wear everyone thin. But four weeks and a song on the War Child benefit compilation Help: A Day in the Life later, things seem to be returning to normal.

That's according to guitarist/multi-intstrumentalist wizard Jonny Greenwood, whose latest Dead Air Space blog entry is titled "Clocking On Again", and begins matter-of-factly, "We're back in the studio, and all is fun and well." Jolly good then.

The mood's loose enough to allow resident album cover artiste Stanley Donwood "in the shed out back, painting again." Jonny continues, "The rats have got in and eaten all his blue paint, and there's blue rat shit everywhere: but at least he's got a good dub CD to listen to while he's working. At least, I think it's good. Let me explain."

Greenwood proceeds to admit that he's never heard the Stooges, that there's more good music out there that any one person can ever expect to listen to, and that for the past six months he's listened to nothing but dub. He claims this listening agenda gathered full steam when he began putting together the compilation that Donwood is now enjoying amid the rat poop.

Could this blog post be a cleverly oblique way of admitting a big influence on the as-yet-untitled follow up to 2003's Hail to the Thief? I mean, listening to the same thing for six months? Surely it's seeped into his subconscious by now.

Instead of plowing ahead with further speculation (like Radiohead + dub = total suckfest), we'll just say that Jonny promises to post the tracklist of his dub mixtape to Dead Air Space sometime soon, and leave it at that. But fear not: the next time a member of Radiohead picks his nose and blogs about it, Pitchfork News will let you know immediately.

* Pitchfork Review: Various Artists: Help: A Day in the Life
* Pitchfork News: Radiohead Start Blog, Track Progress of New LP
* Radiohead: http://www.radiohead.com
* Dead Air Space: http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace