Radiohead go back into their Oxford studio in the tour break

Radiohead are back at work in their Oxford studio while the Hail to the Thief tour is on a break, Jonny Greenwood told Jonathan Cohen of Billboard.com on Monday 12 January. I was in the Radiohead studio just a couple of hours ago. Phil (Selway) was there drumming and recording and Thom has been in and out.¹

He says the band took Merce Cunningham's Split Sides commission seriously and felt privileged to have it. At his New York apartment Cunningham, now in his eighties, showed them how he works out his dances on a laptop, a Macintosh G4, and Greenwood found it inspiring that a man of his age had never stopped changing.

The music Radiohead played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music premiere in October will not be released, Greenwood says, and when the piece comes to the Barbican in London this October a recording will probably stand in for the band, a Radiohead spokesperson said in December. It's just for the dancing and that's it.²

Whether the sessions are for the follow-up to Hail to the Thief is not settled, and no release date is set. Beyond eight dates in Japan and Australia in April and a much-rumoured Coachella appearance in California, Greenwood says, nothing is booked. We don't take time off very well. We're enjoying it still, so why just go home and do nothing?²