Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich has emerged from behind closed doors with his electronic group Ultraísta

‘I never had a great yen to be in a band, and I don’t need to be anything approximating a public figure – that’s not really my thing. I made a decision early on that I would rather be behind closed doors, working in a laboratory, than being on stage. I like to get things wrong and for people not to be able to see or hear them.”

So why is producer Nigel Godrich – known as the sixth member of Radiohead, having produced many of that band’s albums as well as having worked with Beck and Paul McCartney – stepping out of the studio and into a muted limelight?

It’s quite simple, says the 41-year-old, whose new recording project, Ultraísta, is a low-key, electronic blend of intrigue and delight. It seems he has worked for so many years in recording studios that he zoned out of certain ways of doing things. Did the need to screw up occasionally overtake the need to get right all the time?

“Well, the band is just a big change for me, so that’s refreshing,” he says. “It’s not that it’s a great career move, but more of a hobby and something I enjoy. The most important thing is I get to do something that I like doing and get paid for it. I’m fortunate to be able to do that.

“As I’ve got older, however, and having worked with performers for so long, I’ve become aware that it’s the possibility of something going wrong that makes my work so interesting. I’m not afraid of that any more: I’d rather shoot high and miss than not to shoot at all.”

Named after Spain’s anti-modernist Ultraísmo literary movement, Godrich’s latest music unit, which includes singer Laura Bettinson and drummer Joey Waronker, employs a sonic inventiveness that is something of a trademark. As someone whose production work is based on a sense of objectivity, what is it like producing a band of which he is a member? Confusing? Conflicting?

“It’s surprisingly similar. What you have to do, of course, is to switch hats – often – from creative to selective modes. That involves degrees of separation.”

What people have to understand, he says, is the term “producer” is merely a label. “I don’t just sit in the studio and say: ‘This is good and that’s bad.’ I just make noise, and what you do is splurge: you throw enough sonic mud at the walls to stick and then you come back to it a week later and sort through it.”

The other important element in this, he says, is that the lines between the roles of producer and musician have become increasingly blurred.

“These days, ‘producer’ might even mean ‘artist’. My role has always been very elastic and so the studio has become another instrument for me: you edit and combine sounds and make something that is, hopefully, interesting. I think the traditional role of the producer has changed so much that, quite honestly, I would now no longer call myself a producer. It’s more of a collaborative process.”

With Ultraísta, a side project far from the commercial reach of his work with Radiohead and others, what is Godrich’s preference: music that sells millions of copies or music that contains fascinating ideas?

“Oh, that’s an easy one to answer: it’s music containing fascinating ideas that sells millions. The truth, as we all know, is that the definition of fascinating is subjective. The pleasure and the challenge is that no one might agree with you.”

Ultraísta play Dublin’s Button Factory on Saturday, December 8th. The album Ultraísta is on Temporary Residence.