Radioheads’ Philip Selway Announces First Solo Album In Nine Years, Shares New Song “Check For Signs Of Life”

Philip Selway, known as the drummer for the famed English rockers Radiohead, has announced that he will be releasing his first album as a solo artist in nearly nine years, Brooklyn Vegan reports. The new project, entitled Strange Dance, is scheduled to drop on February 24 via Bella Union. To celebrate the announcement, the English multi-instrumentalist has dropped the project’s lead single, “Check for Signs of Life.”

Philip Selway has intended for the new project to enter into a simultaneously cinematic and intimate style, filled with the sounds of horns, pianos, synths and strings, as well as a variety of other instruments. The project will feature collaborations with Hannah Peel, Adrian Utley, Quinta, Marta Salogni, Valentina Magaletti and Laura Moody.

Speaking on the new project, Selway has explained that “The scale of it was very deliberate for me, from the outset. I wanted the soundscape to be broad and tall but somehow get it to wrap around this intimate vocal at the heart of it.” The musician goes on: “One of the things I’ve liked about this record is it’s me as a 55-year-old not trying to hide that fact. It feels kind of unguarded rather than seeing that ageing process as something that needs to be hidden. I wanted it to have that space so if you’re listening to it you can lose yourself in it. Almost like a refuge.” See the full tracklist and album art for the project below.

Strange Dance Tracklist

1. Little Things
2. What Keeps You Awake At Night
3. Check For Signs Of Life
4. Picking Up The Pieces
5. The Other Side
6. Strange Dance
7. Make It Go Away
8. The Heart Of It All
9. Salt Air
10. There’ll Be Better Days

Lead single and track #3 “Check for Signs of Life” gives fans a good taste of what to expect from the upcoming album, offering a mellow and reserved but cinematic sound that grows in intensity as the song goes goes on. While the orchestration surrounding Selway’s vocals grows in volume, the musician keeps his same warm and soothing tone throughout the track’s four minute runtime. See the official lyric video for “Check For Signs of Life” via YouTube below.

Strange Dance, Selway’s third solo album, will follow the musician’s 2014 project, Weatherhouse. The legendary comedian Dave Chappelle has recently offered cover of Radiohead’s 1992 hit “Creep” at a tribute show for the late Taylor Hawkins.