As if we needed another reason to look forward to 2009, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow told BBC Radio’s 6 Music DJ Nemone this week that the band is on track to record a new album in the new year.

This spring saw the release of Third, fittingly their third studio album. Barrow told Nemone that it took the band a while to decide whether to record again or not. “We just didn’t want to repeat ourselves again really, there’s no real point,” he said. “We’d actually prefer to stop altogether if we were just going to roll out the old kinda sound really.”

It seems that rolling out the same old stuff is definitely not the plan, and Barrow said they’ve even determined a direction for the new album, and that the whole band seems “really positive” about it. “When everyone’s had a bit of a break, I think we’re just going to plough into it,” he said.

The band is also looking to spend quite a bit of 2009 outside the confines of the studio. “I think everybody at some point wants to get back out on the road, because we didn’t really do an awful lot of live stuff,” Barrow said.

The interview with 6 Music followed up on an exclusive recording session the band did for BBC Radio, featuring unique versions of four tracks from Third. The full interview as well as the tracks are available through BBC 6 Music all week.

Barrow’s said the possibilities for a new album are endless, and fans might be surprised with what hits stores next year.

What’s really interesting is that we’re in this lucky position now. We haven’t got a record company; our deal ended and so did our publishing deal. So we pretty much own all of our own rights now, which is scary as well as exciting really, so we’re thinking of loads of different ways of doing things.