Radiohead’s Philip Selway shares ominous new track ‘Strange Dance’
Radiohead’s drummer and co-founder Philip Selway has just released the title track, ‘Strange Dance’, taken from his upcoming solo album, which will be available on February 24th via Bella Union.
Strange Dance will be Selway’s third solo endeavour, following 2010’s Familial and 2014’s Weatherhouse. The new single comes after ‘Check for Signs of Life’, the album’s leading track, which Selway shared in October, and last month’s ‘Picking Up Pieces’.
According to a press statement from Selway, the song has been in the works for over 20 years, dating back to Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac days. He claimed the track has “had a very long gestation” period. “In its original form, it was the first piece from the album to be written, over 20 years ago,” he said, before adding: “It was also the last song to be completed on the album, with the lyric taking shape in the final recording session”. Referring to the song’s name, Selway shared: “[it] refers to the contortions we all perform as we try to balance seemingly irreconcilable elements of our lives, and the relationships that help us navigate this uncertainty.”
Speaking to Far Out during a recent interview, Selway discussed the new track, stating: “That song has actually been around for me in one form or another for quite a while. It was written on guitar originally, and so the chords have been there for ten or about 15 years, but I just never knew what to do with it.”
He also shared the names of some artists that inspired his upcoming record: “The artists who influenced me, the musical voices that I wanted, were the musicians I wanted to work with as well. That’s why I approached them, so it’s Quinta, Adrian Utley, Hannah Peel, and then Laura Moody, who does all the string arrangements.”
The track possesses an ominous and forbidding atmosphere, yet it is completely enthralling. The string arrangements enrapture as they weave through rattling instrumentation, and Selway delivers lines such as “But I’ve been running all my life/ Now there’s nowhere left to hide/ I’m all out/ A hollowed, brittle fool.”
Listen to the new song below.
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