Autechre said no to supporting Radiohead, Warp confirms

Autechre were asked to support Radiohead and turned it down, Rob Mitchell, co-founder of Warp Records, confirms in NME's three-page feature on Kid A. I don't think it's because they didn't like Radiohead, I think it's because they didn't think it was the right thing to do.¹ Mitchell, whose label is home to Autechre and Aphex Twin, calls Kid A excellent and an honest take on its influences, picks out “Idioteque”, and thinks it may one day be heard as Bowie's “Heroes” and Low are now. He doesn't think Aphex Twin would even listen to it.

NME's James Oldham, reviewing the album in the same feature, finds it brave but flawed, too close to Autechre and Aphex Twin, and essentially Thom Yorke's record. Jonny and Colin Greenwood reject that. NME talked to them and Phil Selway in a freezing kitchen in South Wales after the opening night of the British tour at Newport. Jonny says the solo-record charge could be argued for one or two songs across all the sessions at most, and Colin says Yorke played some amazing bass and everyone contributed.

The band copy their favourite records, Jonny says, and don't set out to break barriers. What we do is so old-fashioned. It's like trying to do something innovative in tap-dancing.¹ The sessions were hard to get going and then so productive that nobody could stop, which is why so much music is recorded.

Yorke, talking to Lauren Zoric in a café on Oxford's Cowley Road, says that near the end of the OK Computer promotion he spent months feeling he was falling through trap doors, like acid flashbacks, and was a complete mess and really ill when it was over. When he brought in the new way of working, Nigel Godrich, the band's producer, couldn't see why they would give up their strength, but trusted him anyway. I think he thought I'd lost my marbles.¹ Frustration drove it, Yorke says, and the turn to electronics is no arbitrary reaction against the band's guitars, though he expects some people to take it that way. Fear of dying runs through the record. He puts it down to turning 30, and to long days walking harsh country near his house by the sea.

Selway says that around The Bends and OK Computer too much energy went into interviews and away from the music and the visual side, and that the band are snubbing nobody, only looking for a balance they may not have found yet. Some of the music they have been playing live will come out next year, Colin says. If you want to hear songs like 'Knives Out', you can come and hear us play it and then we'll release it in March next year.¹