In May 2009, the band began new recording sessions with producer Nigel Godrich. In August of that year, Radiohead released two singles from these sessions on their website. First, "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)", was recorded in tribute to Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier to have fought in the First World War, who had recently died. The song was sold for £1, with proceeds donated to the British Legion. "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" featured Thom Yorke singing lyrics based on Patch's own statements about his war experience, over a string orchestra backdrop arranged by Jonny Greenwood. Later that month, a new song "These Are My Twisted Words", was made available as a free download. Jonny Greenwood explained that the song had been one of the first products of the band's recent studio sessions.
In a mid-2009 NME interview, Yorke suggested that Radiohead would turn their focus from full length albums to releasing EPs, including the possibility of an EP of orchestral music. In December that year, O'Brien stated on Radiohead's website that the band would begin work on their next album in January, "The vibe in the camp is fantastic at present, and we head off into the studio in January to continue on from the work we started last summer...10 years ago we were all collectively (that’s the band) in the land of Kid A... and although hugely proud of that record, it wasn’t a fun place to be...What's reassuring now, is that we are most definitely a different band, which should therefore mean that the music is different too and that is the aim of the game." In an interview with BBC 6 Music in June 2010, Ed O'Brien made similar comments, that Radiohead were "in the heart of [recording] now". O'Brien also said the band hoped to be able to release the record by the end of the year. In September 2010, Colin Greenwood mentioned that they had just finished a new set of songs and "have begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again". Phil Selway added later that month that the band will "take stock" of the new material and said that it is all "up in the air".
 |
In January 2010, while Radiohead members were in Los Angeles to record, the band played their only gig of the year as a benefit for Oxfam. Tickets were auctioned to the highest bidders, allowing the show at L.A.'s Henry Fonda Theater to raise over half a million US dollars for the NGO's work in Haiti, which earlier that month had been hit by a devastating earthquake. A group of fans edited together digital video taken by attendees to make a multi-camera document of the concert, which they made available through YouTube and torrents in December 2010, with the band's support and a "pay what you want" link to donate to Oxfam. In 2010, another collective of fans made a not-for-profit video of Radiohead's 2009 Prague concert and distributed it freely online, with soundboard audio provided by the band. Live in Praha and Radiohead for Haiti were reviewed by mainstream media and were described as examples of the band's openness to fans and their positivity toward non-commercial forms of Internet distribution. Radiohead's eighth album, The King of Limbs was digitally released in February 2011. It will also be available in standard CD, vinyl, and download formats, or as a unique "newspaper album", which features numerous extras.
Just 2 months after the release of The King of Limbs, Radiohead announced a new single for Record Store Day. The single contains two new songs "Supercollider" and "The Butcher".
Sources:
