The record, the group's sixth, is due for mid-June, with working titles '2+2=5' and 'Are You Listening'. Recording is now complete, although sessions on the record are expected to continue until at least mid-February.

O'Brien revealed that the atmosphere in the band is "fucking brilliant" compared to the frosty recording sessions for their last two albums 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac, and that the new songs contain "space and sunshine and energy".

He commented: "You know that time when bands begin to swagger, like when the Stones got in a grove from '68 to '73? In the last two years, I think we've done that. To me, this record feels like the culmination of the best bits of 'The Bends', 'OK Computer', 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac'.

Speaking to Q, drummer Phil Selway added: "I don't think we've ever felt so self assured in the studio. This time no shit hit the fan. And Thom's voice has been incredible. That's the stand out element for me. He's reminded us that he's in a league of his own."

Radiohead are strongly rumoured to be playing at this year's Glastonbury festival, while internet sources claim a slot at the Coachella festival in the US this Spring is also a possibility.

Among the bands Coldplay respects, strives to emulate and gets compared to the most are U2 and Radiohead. It's no surprise, given that Martin cites War and OK Computer as two of his ten all-time-favorite albums. For now, the band has sought to emulate Dublin's finest primarily on the humanitarian front: Martin recently traveled to Haiti to promote fair trade for economically disadvantaged countries. "There are many countries that are just strangled at the moment by America and England," Martin explains. "Free trade means you can just dump your surplus on countries; fair trade means you can't."

Viewed in terms of its sonic and commercial arcs, Rush is most akin to another Radiohead record, the spectacularly underrated The Bends. Months before that release, Radiohead had emerged from virtual obscurity to notch the unexpected megahit "Creep," followed by the inevitable "one-hit-wonder" backlash. Radiohead silenced its critics with 1995's Bends, a lush, rock-solid twelve-song collection that, despite yielding a handful of small-scale hits, best served its listeners as a knockout album.

In an uncannily parallel set of professional circumstances, Coldplay's Rush is precisely to "Yellow" as Bends was to "Creep." But unlike Radiohead's brilliant but annoyingly pretentious lead vocalist, Thom Yorke, the witty, folksy Martin admits to jonesing for the title of "greatest rock band ever," a pedestal openly sought -- and arguably scaled -- by U2. Whereas Yorke and company drift toward an isolated, neo-Icelandic art-rock corner of the music world, one currently occupied by Sigur Rós and Bjork, Martin and his mates would welcome another "Yellow." "Obviously we'd love to have a hit single," says Martin. "When we write every song, we want it to be "Bohemian Rhapsody." But we just wanted to convince people that we're not a flash in the pan."

Q: It's common knowledge that despite many requests Radiohead have resisted creating music for films. What drew you to the project Bodysong?
A: Most film score writing demands discipline. You have to use click-tracks, and provide music that makes it's point in, say, 20 seconds - and even leaves spaces for dialogue.
This wasn't true with Bodysong, which meant I could let musicians play at tempos that felt right. So I had the luxury of just concentrating on trying to put some kind of mood across.

Q: What was the biggest challenge of writing a film soundtrack of this size and scope?
A: One advantage of a regular soundtrack is that you can structure the music around recurring themes or characters - neither of which occurs in Bodysong.
Also I was very conscious of the exhaustion you get hearing 85 minutes of music that is either too similar or too disparate in style. I was trying to get the balance between them...

Q: What came first the images or the music?
A: Both, in a way. Rough drafts of the film came in sections (that grew and shrank in length as the editing progressed) and stuff written for each section that was recorded, then edited to size, towards the end of the whole process.

Q: How did your very different experiences as part of Radiohead and your classical musical knowledge contribute to the mix of music you've created for Bodysong?
A: It just meant I could use a string quartet, and write out stuff for the jazz players to improvise around. It was a revelation to realise that you can rely on good players to make quite simple ideas sound very 'musical'. The Emperor String quartet were fantastic - adaptable, patient and played beautifully.

Q: The film images are a mixture of analogue images (some over 100 years old) and digital images, all compiled, restored and edited into a narrative digitally. Does the process you used to create the soundtrack music reflect that mix?
A: I suppose so... I was anxious not to just provide pastiches of older styles of music to accompany older sources of film: and yet, I quickly found out that it was important for some of the music to try and be beautiful - pretty, even - like the footage. And not be embarrassed by that. The dark, sinister moods were easier, but could have swamped the film if music like the string quartet material wasn't there too.

Colin was present at the launch of DBC Pierre's excellent debut novel "Vernon God Little" on Tuesday 22nd January.

The book, published by Faber & Faber, is out this month and was the subject of a buzzing launch party held at the independent publishers head offices in centralLondon.

A mention of the legendary Oxford event in 2001, headlined and organised by Radiohead drew a humorously humble response from Colin "Oh, I'm sorry about the rain. And the queues!?"

By and large he looked keen to keep a low profile, a very fair reaction given the focus of the evening, DBC Pierre. And what a debut this author has delivered. Any fans of beautiful, razor sharp writing with an acidic deconstruction of US News Media should certainly have a read. The book also contains one of the finest evocations of angry, heartbroken youth committed to writing. An essential book.

ATTENTION NYC-AREA RADIOHEAD FANS...MTV2 WANTS YOU!

The votes are in...Thom Yorke is one of MTV2's Top 22 Voices!

MTV2 wants to film a few Thom Yorke fans telling them how his voice has shaped your life, influenced you or inspired you in any way. If your answers are strong, you will be representing the Thom Yorke fans on MTV2!

If you're interested, please answer the questions below and submit your answers to mtv.production.casting@mtvstaff.com. Filming begins next week! 1/28-2/4

"Top 22 Voices" Questions
1. Who is your pick for greatest voice & why?
2. How has the artist personally touched/inspired/affected you?
3. What kind of memorabilia do you have of that artist (photo, autograph, e-mail, letters, tickets, room full of posters, CD/record collection, etc) visually showing that you are a huge fan? (your opinion carries weight)
4. How many times have you seen this artist live? What was the artist's defining moment?
5. Include your name, phone #, address, pictures of memorabilia / souvenirs & of your

http://capitolrecords.com/radiohead
http://www.radiohead.com

Forget uber-cool figures like Thom Yorke or Ian Curtis. If you want to make it as a professional sportsperson, it pays to listen to the Cheeky Girls and MC Hammer. Swells explains why.

With all the current hoo-hah about how all gun crime in the UK is obviously caused by listening to gangsta chaps rapping about ho's and that, I think it ill behoves us in the sports massive to get all snooty and superior. Because we got our problems too, baby. Just look at the England cricket team.

Now it's a well known fact that - unlike their footballing brethren - English cricketers have got dead "cool" taste in music. And so it's a pretty safe bet that our boys down-under spend much of their leisure time listening to the spirit-withering. soul-eviscerating and sex-drive destroying emotional scab picking of the dead "cool" band Radiohead.

Now in an early interview, Radiohead's Thom Yorke moaned that us Brits don't like talking about mental illness and depression. Well there's a reason for that, Thom. It's because it's depressing. And it is also true that the Stig Parkinson - the band's Swedish drummer (who once had a trial for Crystal Palace but that's another story) - works as a volunteer for The Samaritans. Uh, hello! Conflict of interest, anybody?

w.a.s.t.e members one and all

We have been handed info regarding a project Jonny has been involved in to share with you.


BodySong. A Feature Film. Certificate 18
A Century of Human Drama and Struggle captured in Moving Images.

A movie that tells the story of an archetypal human life using images taken from All around the World and The Last 100 Years of Cinema.

The editing, music, and the mythic narrative arc of the material is designed to take the viewer on a roller coaster tour of the human body and life cycle. Every possible depiction of the human life from microscopic medical to portraits and newsreels, from births to deaths, are cut to a powerful music track by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead to create a powerful and highly emotional film.

The film's power derives from the force of numbers; each face, each person, each body, each glimpse of anatomy, is both abstracted and dignified by being part of a huge flow, a torrent of humanity larger than any of us can conceive.


Written and Directed by Simon Pummell.
Music written and produced by Jonny Greenwood
Produced by Janine Marmot
A Film by Hot Property Films for FilmFour and The Film Council.

Bodysong will be screened in Rotterdam on the following dates:
Monday 27th January 2003 10.15pm
Tuesday 28th January 2003 12.00 noon
Thursday 30th January 2003 5.00pm
Saturday 1st February 2004 2.45pm
For ticket info contact the International film festival Rotterdam after January 16th http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com or tel: 00 31 10 890 90 00

www.bodysong.com will also go live at this time.
Happy New Year
all@w.a.s.t.e

The first, City Reading (Tre Storie Western), will be both airy and literary. The record, which comes out March 25, is a music-and-spoken-word rendition of Italian writer Alessandro Baricco's novel City, about a young mathematical genius with a vivid fantasy life.

The production was birthed last summer when Baricco invited Air to perform live while he read excerpts from his book. The show premiered in November at the Teatro Valle in Rome, and met with such critical acclaim that the two decided to translate the project into an album.

For the disc, Air recorded over an hour of new instrumentals, which were mixed by Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, and combined with Baricco's readings. The track list will consist of three pieces, La Putana di Closing Town, Caccia All'uomo and Bird.

Since last April, the band have been preparing themselves for the recording of their sixth album, which is due for release in June.

However, instead of recording throughout that time, the actual recording sessions have been restricted to eight weeks in LA and Oxford, in an attempt to capture a performance feel.

We will have actually only spent eight weeks recording, drummer Phil Selway told NME.

During the famously problematic sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac, recording was drawn out over a period of years, with little or no interaction with the outside world. This time, the group have been playing their new material on the road, as well as recently in a webcast to fans on their official website.

Radiohead are due to resume work on the album shortly after a Christmas break. Recording is now complete, although the album is not yet finished - mixing is expected to take until early Spring.