Q&A:
Is Kid A really about cloning humans? Thom: "That was entirely my fault [laughs]. Early on, Stanley Donwood, who does our artwork, and I started doing this thing, Test Specimen, a cartoon about giving birth to a monster, the Frankenstein thing. For example, the bear logo-- that is a test specimen, the first mutant. The idea was loosely based on stuff we were reading about genetically modified food. We got obsessed with the idea of mutation entering the DNA of the human species. One episode was about these teddy bears that mutate and start eating children. It was this running joke, which wasn't really funny. But in our usual way, it addressed a lot of our paranoias and anxieties. Kid A was just a name flying around-- it was a name on one of the sequencers."
How do you feel (3 months after the release) Kid A was received, did it all go according to plan? Jonny and Colin: "It seemed to be received with a series of kickings in the press." "I think we didn't give people enough time to listen to it as a record when it first came out. I also think, to be honest, it's the nature of the times we are in, the guitar music that is successful now is all of average standard. I heard the controller of Radio 1 say its demographic is 15-25, so I think we were kind of excluded from a lot of things - the chance for the music to be heard. I think it was the right thing for us to do and to take a side step at a time when other artists have been releasing records of a considerable stature and see their records drop of out of the 10's, 20's and 30's two weeks later."
All the reviews were saying how difficult it was, and yet it was an album, for the most part, of recognisable Radiohead songs perhaps without the guitars... " Jonny and Colin: "The other thing is people who were writing about us really liked us, and they can be as dangerous as people who really hate us. As you could confound and disappoint their expectations. I think a lot of writers expected us to come back and save a certain sort of music genre from the palled versions which have been put out to much commercial success - they expected us to come back with a combination of 'OK Computer' and 'The Bends' and definitively stamp on these six string whippersnappers. The fact that we didn't do that I think means people who got their guitars out have had to put them back into the wardrobe,"
Colin, what have you done on this record other than play the bass guitar? Colin: "I sort of drunkenly played other people's records over the top of what we were recording and said it should sound like that." "But, that's exactly how we work." "I took the Alice Coltrane and played it over a song called 'Dollars and Cents' which is on the next record, and Jonny wrote this beautiful string arrangement - this sort of Coltrane style as a backing for it. I don't know, before I did more arrangement things that was in the context of us working out things live in a room together, and we've kid of done less of that on this record. So it's been a different experience for all of us. I've been trying to get into more of the electronic thing and the sampling and channelling what I like about different types of music."
You've brought in some interesting CDs to illustrate the thinking behind the album... "One of the things Thom was into was Warp Records, and the different sounds. He was sick of the same sounds, the same things make the same noises on similar records. For him what was coming out of that was the most exciting, forward, aspect of contemporary music."
What role did your producer, Nigel Godrich, play? He played a huge part. Nigel's gift is his ability to stitch sounds together and create a sound curtain quickly. It was a very different relationship with this one, but with 'OK Computer' we'd rehearsed all the songs and we just went and recorded it. With this record there was a lot more to-ing and fro-ing and work in the studio."
To read Ed O'Brien's diary, click here. Read a capitol press release here.
What role did your producer, Nigel Godrich, play? He played a huge part. Nigel's gift is his ability to stitch sounds together and create a sound curtain quickly. It was a very different relationship with this one, but with 'OK Computer' we'd rehearsed all the songs and we just went and recorded it. With this record there was a lot more to-ing and fro-ing and work in the studio."
To read Ed O'Brien's diary, click here. Read a capitol press release here.
Here are the lyrics of the songs in Kid A:
Everything in its Right Place
Kid A
The National Anthem
How to Disappear Completely
Optimistic
In Limbo
Idioteque
Morning Bell
Motion Picture Soundtrack
Sources:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/
