Radiohead
A new release from Radiohead could be on the way, if a historical trend of new legal entities is to be believed.
According to the British Government’s Companies House agency, the five members of Radiohead established a new limited liability partnership under the name RHEUK25 LLP on Monday (March 10). An LLP is a legal business entity which allows the band to exist and conduct their own dealings outside of the typical framework of a record label.
While the establishment of an LLP may mean nothing on face value, historical activities have indicated that a new release or tour usually follows after Radiohead or its members establish a new LLP.
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In 2007, the group prefaced the release of In Rainbows with the creation of Xurbia Xendless Ltd., which was followed by Ticker Tape Ltd. ahead of The King Of Limbs’ arrival in 2011, while 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool was rumored after the discovery of the Dawn Chorus LLP.
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It’s not just restricted to Radiohead’s movements as a whole, with frontman Thom Yorke having been a part of Unsustainabubble Ltd. in 2010 before Atoms for Peace released their solo album in 2013, with the partnership also being used for his later solo releases. In 2021, Self Help Tapes LLP was incorporated before the release of The Smile’s debut album, and has since been used for their subsequent releases.
The most recent partnership to be created with all five members of Radiohead was Spin With a Grin Ltd., which arrived ahead of their 2021 reissue of Kid A and Amnesiac, dubbed Kid A Mnesia. It should be noted though, the nascent establishment of RHEUK25 LLP also coincides with the anniversary of Radiohead’s second album, The Bends, which was released 30 years ago on Thursday (March 13). Currently, it’s unknown whether the new LLP could be related to new music or a potential reissue.
Radiohead haven’t released a new studio album since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 at the time. Band members have remained active since, with Yorke and guitarist Jonny Greenwood teaming with Tom Skinner to craft The Smile. On Tuesday (March 11), Yorke also announced a collaborative album with Mark Pritchard, with Tall Tales slated to arrive on May 9.
Speaking to Australian radio station Double J ahead of his Australian tour last year, Yorke noted his ignorance of online speculation regarding the band’s future. “I am not aware of it and don’t really give a flying f–k,” Yorke said.
“No offence to anyone and err, thanks for caring. But I think we’ve earned the right to do what makes sense to us without having to explain ourselves or be answerable to anyone else’s historical idea of what we should be doing.”
Fresh off the release of a joint single last month, Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard have announced their debut collaborative album.
Pritchard, who has 30 years’ experience as an electronic musician and producer, first teamed up with the Radiohead and the Smile frontman in 2016, with Yorke providing guest vocals on “Beautiful People” for Pritchard’s Under the Sun record.
The pair had first met when Radiohead last toured Australia in 2012, where English-born Pritchard is based, though their association extended back slightly further (at least in name only). In 2011, Radiohead’s TKOL RMX 1234567 album featured two remixes of “Bloom” reimagined by Pritchard, with one made available under his Harmonic 313 alias.
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Yorke’s 2024 Australian tour brought with it the live debut of the new song “Back in the Game,” which was officially released in February, and is set to also appear on their forthcoming album, Tall Tales. The LP will be out on May 9 via Warp Records.
The record’s announcement also coincides with the release of a new song from the pair, with “This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice” once again being accompanied by a Jonathan Zawada-directed music video. The clip, along with the visual for “Back in the Game,” is part of a feature length film made by Zawada which had been developed in tandem with the creation of the music. A one-off screening of the film will also be announced in the near future.
“Mark sent me a large file of MP3s of ideas during lockdown,” Yorke explained. “There were so many great ones, I knew straight away that I had to drop what I was doing. It felt very much that I had not been anywhere like this before — both as soon as I put my headphones on and started trying to find the vocals, words and sounds, but also, as it progressed, watching Jonathan respond so freely and spontaneously with all his video and artwork ideas.
“It was mental, and I feel lucky to have been involved. I am looking forward to this finally coming out. Tall Tales is very important to me. I hope people get it, and get to hear it!”
The release of Tall Tales comes following a surprisingly prolific year for Yorke. In January 2024, The Smile released their second album Wall of Eyes, with a third album, Cutouts, arriving in October. The records peaked at No. 42 and No. 52 on the Billboard 200, respectively. In April, Yorke also issued the soundtrack to Daniele Luchetti’s drama film Confidenza.
Lady Gaga’s new album might bring with it an eagerly-anticipated return to Australia.
The singer appeared on Australian radio network The Fox’s Fifi, Fev & Nick program to discuss the release of her nascent Mayhem record, while also providing a hint as to whether she might be announcing her first Australian tour dates in over a decade.
“I can’t formally announce anything, but I can tell you that I’m going to be announcing… some things,” she responded with a laugh, before reflecting on her time in the country. “I miss my fans there so much, I really do. I have such fond memories of being in Australia, it’s a beautiful place and I really do want to come back soon.”
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Currently, it’s been close to 11 years since Gaga first performed on Australian shores, last visiting in August 2014 as part of her artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball tour. While that tour was in support of her fourth album Artpop, the singer skipped over the country while touring for her next two – 2016’s Joanne, and 2020’s Chromatica.
Previously, Gaga had been a frequent presence within the country, appearing almost annually thanks to her album tour cycles, and even returning in between official visits for promotional appearances. In July 2011, Gaga’s visit to the New South Wales capital of Sydney saw her declared an honorary citizen of the city by Lord Mayor Clover Moore for her support of the LGBTQI+ community.
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Gaga’s new album, Mayhem, arrives as her seventh, with every one of her previous solo studio albums charting atop the Billboard 200 (save for 2008’s The Fame, which peaked at No. 2). Speaking to Fifi, Fev & Nick, Gaga again touched on her previous claims that the album had been inspired by the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails.
“This album has so many different genres on it; from ‘90s grunge, industrial music, to funk music, ‘80s synth pop… it’s all my favorite things in a blender,” she explained. “It’s why I called it Mayhem – because it’s chaos.”
Speaking to Billboard ahead of Mayhem’s release, Gaga asserted her decision to make such a genre-shifting, kaleidoscopic body of work, noting she paid no mind to any of the expectations that may have been placed upon her for the record.
“I do think that I felt a lot of pressure, over the years, to prove myself as a musician,” she explained. “And that sometimes stopped me from having fun. So, I tried to have a lot of fun making this record.”
Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke are “Back in the Game”, with the pair joining forces once again for a new single.
Pritchard, who has spent more than 30 years as an electronic musician and producer, first teamed up with the Radiohead and The Smile frontman back in 2016, with Yorke providing guest vocals on “Beautiful People” for Pritchard’s Under the Sun record. Five years earlier, Pritchard had also shared a pair of remixes of Radiohead’s “Bloom”, with both versions (one of which was released under his Harmonic 313 alias) appearing on the TKOL RMX 1234567 album.
Much like their previous collaboration, “Back in the Game” sees Yorke’s vocals digitally distorted by Pritchard, this time by way of the H910 Harmonizer, the world’s first commercially-available digital audio effects device.
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The track has also been a staple of Yorke’s recent live sets, with the musician having debuted the song in Christchurch, New Zealand in October as part of his Everything solo tour and playing it at every show since.
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“Back in the Game” comes accompanied by a surreal, kaleidoscopic Jonathan Zawada-directed visual which combines both analog and digital techniques. In a statement, Zawada explained that an early demo of the track saw him envision a cocky, strutting John Travolta in the final scene of Staying Alive, albeit with a more sinister approach.
“Slowly a version of that visual arose around a character wearing a kind of giant parade head with a fixed expression of mania stuck on their face, such that you couldn’t tell if their endless march was one of aggression or celebration,” Zawada explained. “The more I paid attention to the lyrics the more details began to fill themselves out and the overall concept began to form [a] parade of many characters marching past a building from within which everything was being thrown out of a window and into a giant bonfire.
“Ultimately the film for ‘Back in the Game’ ended up depicting a sort of blind celebration taking place as civilization slowly deteriorates around it, a kind of progression through regression. Overlaid onto this is an exploration of how and where we choose to place value in our collective cultural expression and how we collectively confront major cultural shifts in the 21st century.”
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