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Radiohead quits Internet, possibly to promote new album

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 03 May 2016
Radiohead has left only a mysterious chirping bird in place of their digital footprint, purportedly to promote its new album. (Picture: radiohead.com)
Radiohead has left only a mysterious chirping bird in place of their digital footprint, purportedly to promote its new album. (Picture: radiohead.com)

Iconic English rock band Radiohead is teasing fans with its cryptic, disappearing and reappearing social media presence, purportedly signalling an imminent album release.

Radiohead has a history of promoting and releasing its albums in new and unconventional ways, often only acknowledging an album's existence mere days before it launches.

On Sunday, the band's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds, as well as frontman Thom Yorke's Twitter feed, were wiped clean of all content, their profile and cover pictures changed to blank white squares. The band's Web site reportedly slowly decreased in opacity until it eventually became a blank white page.

Early on Tuesday morning, a six-second video appeared on Radiohead's Instagram page of a claymation bird emitting natural birdcall sounds. The band's Twitter and Facebook pages now feature solitary posts linking to the video, which is also displayed intermittently on Radiohead's Web site.

Cryptic chorus

Savvy fans and music journalists quickly deciphered the clip's arcane message as an announcement of an upcoming album.

The chirping bird can be understood as part of a dawn chorus - the phenomenon of birds singing at the start of a day (the video was posted early in the morning), which is particularly prominent during Spring (the current season in England). In October and February, the members of Radiohead registered two new companies called Dawn Chorus LLP and Dawnnchoruss Ltd.

As the band has distributed its last two albums independently, through companies it has created for this purpose - Ticker Tape Ltd for The King of Limbs (2011), and Xurbia Xendless Ltd for In Rainbows (2007) - many conclude that the Dawn Chorus companies are vessels for an imminent new album.

Some fans have reported receiving flyers in their postboxes printed with Radiohead's logo and the words "Sing the song of sixpence that goes 'Burn the Witch'.We know where you live," giving rise to speculation that "Burn the Witch" will be the new album's title.

Given distribution methods for the band's most recent previous releases, it is likely the new album will be available for download directly through one of the band's official channels. In 2007, In Rainbows became the first big-name album to be released using a "pay what you want" model, and Yorke released his latest solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, via BitTorrent in 2014.

"Radiohead's latest album to be released exclusively on the feeling of existential dread that resides within us all," quipped The Daily Beast's Colin Jones on Twitter, playing on the band's dystopian, anti-establishment outlook.

To promote The King of Limbs, Yorke himself reportedly took to record stores handing out a 12-page newspaper titled The Universal Sigh.

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