Thom Yorke Releases Experimental Solo Project as Radiohead Confirms New Album

Thom Yorke, frontman of the iconic British rock band Radiohead, has released a new solo record online directly to fans as an experiment in music marketing he hopes will give more power to artists in marketing their own work.

Yorke has released his new album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes via the website BitTorrent.

Priced at $6, Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich call the album release “an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around,” the team said in a statement. “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 band has experimented with different distribution schemes in the past, like its 2007 release In Rainbows, for which fans could set their own price and download online. The release comes just after Radiohead confirmed the band has begun work on a new album, it’s 9th.