Radiohead to record in Oxford in December and tour from February

Radiohead will spend December and January working on new material at their studio space in Oxford, Thom Yorke told David Fricke of Rolling Stone in an interview published last week. One new song, “Come To Your Senses”, has got as far as a rehearsal recording. We have this version of it. It’s a five-minute rehearsal, but it has the essence of what we need.² A few other songs are at that stage, and Yorke says it would be fun to have them ready for next year's shows. Beats Per Minute links the title to an unreleased song the band tried at a soundcheck at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley in June 2006, known to fans by the same name.

The band can get things together quite quickly at the moment, Yorke says. He doesn't know yet how the new songs will be released, and would like it all to be part of the flow, without thinking about it too much. He wants the album by Atoms for Peace, his other project, finished before the end of the year, but says it is not good enough yet.

The touring will be on and off, with big gaps, though not that big, as he had already said on Gilles Peterson's Radio 1 show in September. There have been so few shows this year, Chris Hufford, one of the band's managers, says, because Clive Deamer, the band's additional drummer, has been on the road with Portishead.

The trade tipsheet Hits Daily Double had Radiohead and No Doubt locked in as Coachella headliners for 2012, which DIY passed on as rumour on 16 September, noting that the same sheet once had the Rolling Stones wrongly topping the festival. The band last played Coachella in 2004. In Australia they had been tipped for months to headline the Big Day Out; on 27 September the festival posted on Facebook that none of its 2012 headliners starts with an R, which Music Feeds and The Brag took as ruling them out.

Ed O'Brien has given BBC 6 Music the shape of the year. The band are finalising dates and will be on the road from the end of February to November, in the UK and the US among other places. The set will come mainly from The King of Limbs and In Rainbows, with other songs picked to fit around them. last time we went out it was ‘In Rainbows’ and a greatest hits. It’s not going to be like that this time.⁵ Every European show will be indoors, though some elsewhere will be outside, because the record needs a space where the music can be loud, strong and detailed. We played in the height of summer and compromised our production. Outdoor gigs can be great, but the sound can get diluted⁵