Track Of The Day: Thom Yorke - 'Brain In A Bottle'

Thom Yorke has been getting people very excited over this past week. On Monday (September 22) he tweeted a picture of a mystery white vinyl record, accompanied by what appeared to be artwork by Stanley Donwood. A day later he posted the lyrics to Radiohead's 2003 track 'A Wolf At The Door', sparking rumours of an imminent new Radiohead album. Yorke revealed that the band were two days into recording new material, suggesting that a new record from the band would require something of a wait. But we all knew that Thom had something up his sleeve, and surely enough he did. Yesterday (Friday September 26) saw the immediate release of his second solo album 'Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'. Setting the record's tone with electronic throbs and dusty beats, the brilliant 'Brain In A Bottle' can be downloaded for free, with the rest of the album available for a mere £3.69 via BitTorrent. This excellent track is also accompanied by a rather mad video, which can be seen below. Recently, Yorke has been very critical of online music distribution, in particular the royalty rates paid to artists by streaming platforms such as Spotify. The album is also available on deluxe 180 gram white vinyl edition house in heavy white inner and outer sleeves “printed with a metallic silver laminate then multi-tone black and a striking neon green; the whole is enclosed in a bespoke anti-static shield bag – a metallised laminated material usually used by the electronics industry for protecting components from electrostatic interference. The bag is printed with neon green on both sides, and has a resealable grip closure.”

Yorke’s full message:

"As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files. The files can be anything, but in this case is an ‘album’. It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around. If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done. The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey. It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front… The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.

Oh yes and it’s called

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.

Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich"

Thom Yorke Unveils Surprise Album Via BitTorrent | American Songwriter

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American Songwriter Track Of The Day: Thom Yorke - 'Brain In A Bottle'

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Thom Yorke Unveils Surprise Album Via BitTorrent

Written by Tyler Rissier September 26th, 2014 at 12:45 pm thom-yorke-tomorrows-modern-boxes

Christmas has come a few months early for Thom Yorke fans. The Radiohead frontman released a new album Friday called Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes on BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing website.
Yorke explained the unusual method of the album’s release in a letter penned with longtime producer and co-conspirator Nigel Godrich:

“As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record.
The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files..
The files can be anything, but in this case is an ’album’.
It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around …
If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.
Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves.
Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.
If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done.
The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey.
It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front…
The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.
Oh yes and it’s called
Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.”

Yorke is no stranger to these type of unconventional releases. Radiohead’s 2007 album In Rainbows was available for fans to download for whatever price they wished to pay (or for free), and 2011′s The King Of Limbs was announced with five day’s notice and billed by the band as the world’s first “newspaper album.”
The single “A Brain In A Bottle” and its accompanying music video (which showcases both the singer’s falsetto and boxing skills) can be downloaded for free, while the rest of the album is $6. Or, you can wait to purchase it on a special white vinyl package.
Get Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes check out the video here or in the window below.
Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes
01 A Brain in a Bottle
02 Guess Again!
03 Interference
04 The Mother Lode
05 Truth Ray
06 There Is No Ice (For My Drink)
07 Pink Section
08 Nose Grows Some