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From BBC Radio 1:
Thom Yorke has remixed a song for a classical album.
The Radiohead singer has teamed up with 11 other artists including members of Gorillaz and The Beta Band for the project, Cortical Songs.The album, is the brainchild of John Matthias who played violin on Radiohead’s album The Bends, and composer Nick Ryan. It is set for release on 21 July.
Yorke’s classical contribution, which is his first, is an avant garde remix.
Musical score
Along with Yorke, former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and The Beta Band keyboardist John Maclean have worked on remixes for the record.The Radiohead singer’s contribution follows guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s recent musical score to the Daniel Day-Lewis film There Will Be Blood.
In the past Greenwood has also worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was hired as its composer in residence in 2004.
Radiohead recently completed their UK tour which included two dates at London’s Victoria Park.
There’s a fantastic interview with Thom and Ed on the A.V. Club website. Towards the end of the interview, Thom drops a hint that a new album may come sooner than we think. Here’s an excerpt:
AVC: Has anything new come out of the band being together, and playing together, on this tour?
TY: We get to hang out with each other; it’s a bit of a novelty. We don’t see each other that much when we’re not doing this.
EO: That’s the great thing about doing this sort of thing—we get to spend some time together, socializing.
TY: Jonny and I spend quite a bit of time going through half-finished things and deliberately forcing ourselves to finish them so we can get them to the others. I’m getting a buzz out of that—this thing, “Slave,” that I was playing for Ed the other day.
EO: That’s right. It’s quite good.
TY: I’ll send it home to Nigel [Godrich] tonight to mix. Honestly, I could probably use a full day doing it, but you’re in unusual places and want to get out. You don’t want to stay in the hotel all day; it becomes a little too much for me. It’s a little bit more than I can stand. In the end, when we’re back from this tour, I’ll probably think, “I really should have spent every day finishing stuff.”
EO: He’s finished quite a bit, though.
TY: I’m doing all right. I’m finishing what I want to finish.
AVC: Sounds like fans might not have to wait another four years for the next record.
TY: We try to keep the momentum of the operation going. Lots of times, if you stop too long, there’s no momentum and it takes a lot to pick it back up again. We’ve had such a positive response to this. We’re human; we lose our confidence far too quickly. It’s nice to have our confidence. That’s the biggest influence on things at the moment, being reasonably confident for a change.
Read the full interview at the A.V. Club.
(thanks to Eric)
Thom and Jonny cover Portishead’s “The Rip” and it is simply amazing.
If you get a chance, check out this great interview The Word did with the band. Here’s a snippet:
What do people most often get wrong about Radiohead?
Thom Yorke: We play up to the tortuous thing a bit too much. It’s not quite like that in the band. But also, this idea that there’s some sort of masterplan, that we’ve got some sort of clue what we’re doing… We haven’t.
Ed O’Brien: I used to think that maybe people didn’t know that there’s actually a great sense of humour in the band. But maybe the webcasts and a few of the things we did last year show that we’re not entirely super-serious all the time. You can’t do what we do without humour. It’s a lot easier to be melancholic in music. We struggle with songs of joy. That’s the tough part.
Phil Selway: People have got a pretty accurate take on us, I think. It can be uncomfortable because some of those takes are less than flattering, but they’re probably valid. You know, po-faced and over-serious… fair point, really. People are starting to pick up on the more playful side of Radiohead, which we hope has come to the fore in the past few years but, you know, no smoke without fire.
Jonny Greenwood: That we’re grumpy. People confuse the work with the people who make it. We’re not necessarily like our songs. Also I think they misunderstand Thom, and how really tiresomely energetic and enthusiastic he can be. Even when the rest of us are flagging, he’s the one with the energy and the excitement who’s saying, “Come on, this sounds amazing, what you’re doing is great.” That’s really good for us and I don’t think anyone knows it.
Read the rest…
If you missed Ed and Thom on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Music program, don’t worry! You can listen to it by clicking this link. You’ll need RealPlayer, though.
Some highlights:
– Thom being asked what he did the day the album was released online: “I seem to remember sitting at home thinking there’s something I’m supposed to be doing today. I didn’t do anything that day.”
– Thom and Ed talk about how they recorded part of In Rainbows in a dilapidated mansion and slept in caravans on the grounds. Nigel wanted to throw the band “in an uncomfortable” situation. “Bodysnatchers” was recorded in a live take there.
– Nigel limited the band to about 15 or 16 songs to focus on to record.
– Thom on why “Reckoner” is completely different than the live version: “Because it’s not the same song. There was a song called Reckoner. I wrote a second part to it and then Jonny wrote another part to it and the song as it was left the building.”
– Thom on why “Nude” took so long to be released: “I think it’s because I used to hate the way I sung it.”
– “Down is the New Up” is described as “mental” by Thom. “Wait till you hear it.” He really wanted it to be on the album but according to Ed, it didn’t fit.
– Thom talked about all the “mad theories on the net”, specifically about the theory of 10s.
– Ed remarked that he was happy that Thom’s voice on In Rainbows was upfront and not “pulled back.”
– If they could relive one Radiohead moment again, both Thom and Ed would relive Glastonbury 1997 where the lights and PAs blew up.
– Speaking of Glastonbury, it sounds like they may be playing it this year if “they want us.”
– Though not finalized or confirmed, they may be playing the US for a couple of weeks starting in May. Europe would follow in June/July. Again, nothing is confirmed!