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Jun 25, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Radiohead

British singer/songwriter Lianne La Havas is releasing a new self-titled album on July 17 via Nonesuch. Now she has shared another song from it, which is actually a cover of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes” (from their In Rainbows album). Listen below.

La Havas and her band have been covering the song live for years and when performing at Glastonbury in 2019 her and her band decided they should record a studio version of the cover. Doing that sparked off how to record the new album.

La Havas explains further in a press release: “I had the most wonderful, nourishing experience recording that. And that’s where I decided: the rest of the album needs to be like this. It’s got to be my band, and I’ve got to do it in London, whenever people have time.”

“This song is very close to my heart, and in the story of the record the lyrics express perfectly where I was,” she continues. “At the same time, it felt very appropriate to use it as a kind of test song to record with my live band, to see if we’d work as well in the studio as we do onstage—I’d always wanted to play live in the studio like in the ’70s. Everything felt right that day. I knew: This is my direction, this is my album, this is my story.

“Thom Yorke’s lyrics suggest finding a way out, and he’s used the imagery of the bottom of the sea and the unusual creatures that you might find there. For me, the deep means the unknown, when you get out of something so familiar. It can be scary, but he also says, ‘I hit the bottom and escape.’”

Lianne La Havas includes the previously shared singles “Paper Thin,” “Bittersweet,” and “Can’t Fight.” On July 15 she is doing a one-off ticketed livestream concert from London’s Roundhouse. Get tickets here.

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