Thom Yorke Releasing New Album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes Via BitTorrent

UPDATE: You can hear the album now.

Radiohead caused a stir in 2007 when they announced they had completed a new album called In Rainbows and would release it 10 days later for whatever price fans wanted to pay. Now Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has pulled another distribution experiment, announcing that a new solo album called Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is available via “a new version of BitTorrent.” In a note Yorke and longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich released to the press today, they explained that “The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ’cloud’ malarkey,” and, “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.” Perhaps this is the mysterious white LP the internet has been feverishly speculating about? Read Yorke and Godrich’s note in full below.

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 & Nigel Godrich