Radiohead is working on new material for the band’s seventh full-length album — the first in ages without longtime producer Nigel Goodrich, guitarist Ed O’Brien told BBC Radio 1. “Part of what you realize as a band is that all those records you made with Nigel apart from Hail to the Thief, we were a little bit in a comfort zone,” O’Brien said. The band has been in the studio on and off during 2005 and has tentative plans to work with former Bjork and Madonna producer Mark “Spike” Stent on the new material. O’Brien said that the band does have new songs, but they’re holding off on announcing a release date so that Thom Yorke and company can be absolutely satisfied with the finished product. The band will be back in the studio in February, and O’Brien says that Radiohead will launch a U.S. tour next summer. He anticipates the band will have ten new songs by that point, and O’Brien says the new material will be going in a different direction. “That’s why you make OK Computer after The Bends,” O’Brien said. “You’ve got to do stuff that you’re scared of doing.”
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