In a telephone interview from his home in Oxford, England, on Thursday, multi-instrumentalist Greenwood said that -- despite having released two complete albums since October 2000 -- the members of Radiohead "have all the songs (for the next record) in our heads." 

"We mull over them and think how they could be done justice to, what is the best way to put them across," Greenwood said. 

Part of that process of figuring out how to put the new material across includes testing the numbers out in front of a live audience. 

"There are a few songs already that we are going to start playing when we get to America and Canada. I don' think they have song titles yet," he said. 

"One of them might be called 'Reckoner.' Maybe. We'll see. It may change again. 'Egyptian Song' (initially known as "Nothing To Fear" and now identified as "Pyramid Song", the first single from "Amnesiac") changed titles." 

When asked if he could characterize the direction the band would take for their next album -- if it would continue the experimental, tech-flavoured sound of "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" or would harken back to the more guitar-based sound of "The Bends" and "OK Computer" -- Greenwood said it's too early to tell. 

"One of (the new songs) has loads of guitar and one of them doesn't." 

During the protracted sessions that produced both "Kid A" and "Amnesiac," Greenwood and his bandmates kept a colourful online diary of their work-in-progress, and several songs described during those sessions have yet to surface. 

Among those orphaned songs mentioned in Radiohead fan circles are "Bombers (Neil Young *9)," "Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)," "C-Minor Song," "I Will," "Innocents Civilian" (described by producer Nigel Godrich at one point as the strongest song from the sessions), "Jonny Scott Walker Song", and "Up On The Ladder." 

Greenwood revealed that another unreleased song, "Cuttooth," will surface next month as a B-side to the next British single from "Amnesiac," "Knives Out". (There's no word on whether North America will issue the single, Greenwood said). 

Some of that other unissued material could also end up as fodder for the next Radiohead studio album, Greenwood said, adding that some of the material that ended up on "Kid A" likewise had its genesis during the sessions for their earlier album, "OK Computer." 

"They might be good songs that we haven't recorded well enough. You can imagine doing a terrible recording of a good song like 'Pyramid Song.' Until you've got it coming out of speakers in a way that works, you don't let anyone else hear it -- even though it is a good song. We have songs like that, which we think are good, but we haven't got it right yet," he explained. 

"You have got to realize it is a complete mess, whenever we finish a record. You have got to picture a room piled high, very messily organized. Reels of tape that have loads of songs and music and ideas. You try to cobble something together from that ... It is that big, messy tape cupboard we have. 

"Sometimes we have written them while touring and played them while touring, and for whatever reason, the idea of going and recording them when they are however many years old, it is a bit weird. You have to wait until the song means something and you are obsessed about it. 

"The flipside of that would be how some bands are about refusing to play new songs, because they are scared of them being heard. And that is kind of a fun thing to do, for us. To write and try things out right away." 

If Radiohead has been sloppy about their own tape archive, their fans have been zealous about documenting as much of the music as possible. Seemingly every show they've played since the release of "Kid A" last October is trading among tape collectors or has been posted online. Other songs from radio shows, webcasts or even unreleased studio sessions have slipped out to their fans. 

In a record business obsessed with music leaked through Napster, Greenwood says he's excited by the fans' collecting of unofficially released music. 

"It is a good sorting process. You see things on bulletin boards, people saying: 'Don't bother with anything from the second German show!' And they are probably right about getting better versions of songs from better shows. There are songs that have never been released, that exist just like that. And it is an interesting way to do it, really." 

By opening up the creative process through the online studio diary and taking a laissez-faire attitude to tape trading, Radiohead has enhanced its relationship with its audience, he reckoned. 

"More direct contact is better. I think so. It is great from our experience. We are pretty guarded in other ways," he said. 

Much of what has been said and written about the group's direction on "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" has portrayed the work as a parenthetical detour in the group's career, a limited experiment before a return to their guitar-oriented, more structured style. The band runs the risk of becoming like Woody Allen, who made more off-beat, experimental films but was forever pestered by requests that he return to making simple comedies. 

"It is weird," Greenwood conceded. 

"A central thing is, we are motivated by still liking music and still wanting to make music. But making 'The Bends' and 'OK Computer' was getting stuff off our chest. But you're right, there has been a lot of weird stuff going around. 

"I'm not sure we've ever found a methodology that works smoothly and easily. I suppose if there is one, it is that when we try to repeat methods we've used before, it doesn't work," Greenwood said. 

"So there is that kind of impetus to keep changing and searching for something else. It is frustrating when you record a great song in two days and you recorded it a certain way. You say, 'That's great, we'll do it like that next time.' And then you do and it doesn't work. It is a long process of going through that." 

The group's desire to take inspiration from diverse sources -- whether it's jazz composer Charles Mingus, or the austere techno sounds of Autechre, or the freewheeling style of German experimentalists Neu! -- is an extension of the band's own enthusiasm for music. 

"I think people get into one type of music, and that is all they want to hear. And that is fine. I am a bit like that with travelling. I am happy to go and see new countries, but I can imagine not wanting to carry on. I think people are like that, they get into a certain kind of music when they are in their teens and they stick with it and they aren't interested in anything else," Greenwood said. 

"And when they hear us bang on about Mingus, it is a turn-off, and they aren't interested in finding out. That doesn't make us in any way superior or a better way to be. We have suffered from some of that, maybe." 

While their method has its drawbacks -- lots of blind alleys, many days and nights spent in the studio, lots of second-guessing -- Greenwood finds it hard to imagine doing it any other way. 

"I think it would be great if we could find something that was quicker and more reliable. But it doesn't work. The end result sounds fraudulent and insincere, somehow. 

"You have to find ways of making the speakers do something that is satisfying somehow. Making good music, that's what we concentrate on, and our method is always changing."