OK Computer - Recording

Recording

In July 1996, Radiohead started rehearsing and recording OK Computer in the Canned Applause studio, a converted shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire. Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of The Bends, the band still ran into difficulties, which Selway blamed on their choice to self-produce the album: "e're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... the stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them." The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music, though Yorke was still firmly "the loudest voice" according to O'Brien. Selway said "we give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing." Meanwhile, Godrich's role in production was somewhere between an equal collaborator and a managerial outsider. In one interview, Godrich said, "With Radiohead, we all shared the responsibility for producing the album"; in another, Godrich said, "They need to have another person outside their unit, especially when they're all playing together, to say when the take goes well. ... I take up slack when people aren't taking responsibility—the term producing a record means taking responsibility for the record. ... It's my job to ensure that they get the ideas across." From the OK Computer sessions onward, Godrich has been characterised as the band's unofficial "sixth member".

Radiohead eventually decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location, which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members' homes, and which Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities. By this time, the group had nearly completed recording four songs—"Electioneering", "No Surprises", "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "The Tourist". At their label's request, the band took a break from recording to embark on a 13-date American tour, opening for Alanis Morissette, where they performed early versions of several of their new songs. During the mid-1996 tour one of the new songs, "Paranoid Android", evolved from a fourteen-minute song featuring long organ solos to one closer to the six-minute album version. During the short tour, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film Romeo + Juliet. Luhrmann gave the band footage of the final 30 minutes of the film, and Yorke said "When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt 45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately." Soon afterwards, the band wrote and recorded "Exit Music (For a Film)"; the track plays over the film's end credits but was not included on the soundtrack at the band's request. Yorke later said that the song helped shape the direction of the rest of the album, and that it "was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin—something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment."

Radiohead resumed their recording sessions in September 1996 at St Catherine's Court, a historic mansion near Bath owned by actress Jane Seymour. Jonny Greenwood said the new location was unlived-in but sometimes used as "a kind of corporate convention hangout." The change of setting marked an important transition in the recording process. Greenwood, comparing the mansion to previous studio settings, said recording at St. Catherine's Court "was less like a laboratory experiment, which is what being in a studio is usually like, and more about a group of people making their first record together."

The group made extensive use of the different rooms and acoustics throughout the house: the vocals on "Exit Music (For a Film)" featured an echo effect achieved by recording on a stone staircase, and "Let Down" was recorded at 3 AM in a ballroom. The isolation from the outside world allowed the band to work at a different pace, with more flexible and spontaneous working hours. O'Brien said that "the biggest pressure was actually completing . We weren't given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff." Yorke was ultimately satisfied with the quality of the recordings made at the location, and later said "In a big country house, you don't have that dreadful '80s 'separation'. ... There wasn't a desire for everything to be completely steady and each instrument recorded separately." O'Brien was similarly pleased with the recordings, estimating that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live. He noted, "I hate doing overdubs, because it just doesn't feel natural. ... Something special happens when you're playing live; a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen."

Radiohead returned to Canned Applause in October for rehearsals, and completed most of the album during further sessions at St. Catherine's Court. By Christmas, they had narrowed the track listing down to 14 songs. The album's string parts were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997. The album was mastered at the same location, and mixed over the next two months at various studios around the city. Godrich preferred a quick and hands-off approach to his mixing work, and said "I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up. ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective."