On Saturday Sunday, the happy-go-lucky members of Radiohead played a benefit show in Hollywood for Oxfam’s relief efforts in Haiti. During the second encore, Thom Yorke debuted “Lotus Flower,” a brand-new track presumably destined for their upcoming eighth album, which they’re supposedly recording now. As you might expect, it features a sad melody sung all in falsetto, arpeggiated minor chords, drop-D guitar tuning, and a meandering Yorke-plucked bass line. Basically, it sounds like it could lapse into “I Might Be Wrong,” “There There,” “Follow Me Around,” or “In Limbo” at any second. Also, we can’t make out any of the lyrics, but they’re almost certainly about the dangers of unchecked capitalism or some virus common to rabbits.
