Background
With their previous albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), Radiohead had replaced their earlier guitar-led rock sound with a more electronic style. On tour in 2000 and 2001, the band learned how to perform the electronic music in a live context, synthesising computer-generated sounds with live instrumentation. Songwriter Thom Yorke said: "Even with electronics, there is an element of spontaneous performance in using them. It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. That was stuff we were getting into (...) When we talked about it, after the tour, we realised that we didn't want to make any big creative leap or statement. This is a good space we're in. We should carry on and enjoy it."
In early 2002, after the Amnesiac tour had finished, Yorke sent the other band members CDs containing demos of songs he wanted to attempt to record for Radiohead's sixth album. The band had previously tried to record some of the songs, such as "I Will" and "A Wolf at the Door", in the joint sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac, but had not been satisfied with the results. Radiohead spent May and June arranging and rehearsing the songs before performing many of them on their tour of Spain and Portugal that summer. Multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood told the Daily Telegraph: "The songs were subject to instant focus groups. The audience became a democratic polling process. If they stayed for the end, we knew we should record it."
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