Phil Selway says Radiohead may scrap a year's work on the new album

Radiohead's drummer Phil Selway says the band may throw out a year's work on the follow-up to In Rainbows when they meet on Monday 27 September. He spoke to the Canadian Press by phone from Amsterdam on 20 September, the day he played the Paradiso's small hall on his solo tour.

In Rainbows grew largely out of what the band played live. This time, Selway said, the process has been quite the opposite so far⁵.

The band have worked on the songs on and off for a year and took the summer off. Monday's meeting is to listen again with fresh ears and work out what the record needs to reach its final stages. Once they have talked it through, he said, we might just throw this all out and say maybe we need to go back to the drawing board⁵.

How the record will come out is open too, because we're not at that stage at the moment - we haven't finished anything - we don't know how or what's the most appropriate way for getting it out there⁵. Given the band's last decade, he would bet on some new digital or online approach. The week before, Colin Greenwood wrote in an essay for Index on Censorship that Radiohead had finished another group of songs and had yet to decide how to release them.

For now, Selway said, everything is up in the air. But we've been enjoying what we've been doing.⁵