Capitol gives Amnesiac its first hearing at South by Southwest

Capitol Records played six tracks from Amnesiac to invited guests at South by Southwest in Austin on Thursday 15 March. The band were not there. The music came through a sound system brought into Plush, a small bar that used to be the Blue Flamingo, and when its 25 minutes were up the room applauded as though Radiohead had just walked off stage.

It was the first of three sessions Capitol held at the festival, open only to registrants with the right extra pass. Capitol congratulated the few dozen writers and label people on being nearly the first on American soil to hear the music. A label representative told the room that Amnesiac, due on 4 June, was recorded at the same time as Kid A and kept back because the band did not want to release a double album.

Dan Durchholz and Gary Graff, writing for ABC News, found more guitar than on Kid A, though still plenty of synthesisers, polyrhythms and distorted vocals, and New Orleans funeral brass on “Life in a Glasshouse”. Christopher Gray of the Austin Chronicle noticed the vocals and drums sitting much further forward than last time. His pick of the six was the fourth track played, for its snarling electric guitar against a one-handed drumbeat.

The six tracks played