Radiohead to release Amnesiac in Britain on 4 June

Radiohead's spokesperson in Britain confirmed today that Amnesiac, the band's fifth album, will be released in the UK on 4 June. The date had already turned up on websites abroad. Billboard has 4 June as the international date, and expects Capitol's American release in early June too. The promotion starts tonight, when Ed O'Brien and Colin Greenwood play two songs from the album at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Thom Yorke had warned, in a post on the official messageboard at radiohead.com reported on 12 January, that Amnesiac would not be out before June, a long wait after Kid A as he admitted. The band needed time to finish the artwork and the films that go with the record, and to give it a fair hearing in the music business, which he reckoned would take four months at least. We are really proud of 'Amnesiac' and we want to give it a fair chance within the giant scary cogs of the bullshit machine.³

He defended the three years between OK Computer and Kid A as something the band had to do, the alternative being never to make anything again. Across the two records, he worked out, it came to about two minutes of music a month, and he called that a joke. If you are saying that we did fuck all for three years I guess in a way you're right.³