Update: The new Radiohead album will be out at 2 PM ET this coming Sunday (5/8), available for digital purchase via the band’s website and iTunes and streaming on Spotify and Apple Music, according to an article today in The New York Times. Physical copies of the album – as yet no title has been announced – will be in stores June 17th. The band has also released a new song and video: “Daydreaming.” The clip was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, known for his films Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master and Inherent Vice.
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After recently scrubbing their website and social media clean and briefly “disappearing” from the Internet, Radiohead has returned to the Web with a new single and video clip on their sites: “Burn The Witch.” It’s the band’s first new song since they released their unused submission for the theme song for the James Bond movie Spectre last December. A new studio album – which would be the band’s ninth – is expected to follow soon.
“Burn The Witch” is a stop-motion claymation clip that has prompted much speculation and interpretation on the net and in the media. Watch it here:
The clip by Chris Hopewell portrays what seems at first glance a bucolic country village where disturbing undertones surface: a woman on a dunking chair, another tied to a tree as men circle around in animal masks with antlers, a gallows festooned with flowers, a giant wooden human figure in which a man is incinerated. All while Radiohead singer Thom Yorke croons such lyrics as “cheer at the gallows,” “shoot the messengers,” “burn the witch, we know where you live.” Various theories on the message run from environmental destruction, the dangers of group think, the ill effects of technology to the Syrian refugee crisis and Islamophobia (to name some but hardly all).
Dedicated Radiohead followers have pointed out that “Burn The Witch” is hardly a “new” song, dating all the way back to the sessions for the band’s 2000 Kid A album and referenced on the cover of Hail to the Thief in 2003. It is for now the presumed title as well of the expected album, which the band teased earlier this year on announcing its 2016 tour dates (see below), touting the “presentation of the new album” at their June 3rd appearance at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona. It was just announced today (5/5) that Radiohead will appear both weekends at the Austin City Limits Music Festival (9/30-10/2 and 10/7-9), although the specific days have yet to made public.
The campaign around “Burn The Witch” has shown Radiohead’s mastery at using Internet “breadcrumbs” to gin up interest, and within a few days they amassed some six millions video views. Since they took to the web to launch In Rainbows in 2007 with a “pay what you want” offering, the band has proven that the Internet can be a boon to artists with some marketing savvy.
Radiohead 2016 World Tour
MAY
20th Amsterdam, Heineken Music Hall
21st Amsterdam, Heineken Music Hall
23rd Paris, Le Zénith
24th Paris, Le Zénith
26th London, Roundhouse
27th London, Roundhouse
28th London, Roundhouse
JUNE
1st Les Nuits Des Fourvieres, Lyon, France
3rd Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Spain
17th Secret Solstice, Reyjkavik, Iceland
JULY
2nd Openair St Gallen, Switzerland
8th Nos Alive Festival, Lisbon, Portugal
26th New York City, Madison Square Garden
27th New York City, Madison Square Garden
29th Lollapalooza Festival, Chicago, IL
31st Osheaga Music And Arts Festival, Montreal, Canada
AUGUST
4th Los Angeles, Shrine Auditorium
6th Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco, CA
8th Los Angeles, Shrine Auditorium
20th Summersonic Festival, Osaka, Japan
21st Summersonic Festival, Tokyo, Japan
SEPTEMBER
11th Lollapalooza Festival, Berlin, Germany
OCTOBER
3rd Mexico City, Palacio de los Deportes
4th Mexico City, Palacio de los Deportes
