Thom Yorke announces The Eraser, a record of his own

Thom Yorke has made a record without the rest of Radiohead. It is called The Eraser, it has nine tracks, and XL Recordings release it on 10 July in Britain and 11 July in America.

This morning he wrote to fans through W.A.S.T.E., the band's fan club and mail-order, owning up to something that had been going on in the background. Yes it's a record! No it's not a Radiohead record.²

The message came the morning after the band opened the British leg of their tour at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, a night with six songs meant for the next album; they are back in the same room tonight. SPIN reports that Radiohead broke off work on that album to tour, and that it is expected next year.

Radiohead, he says, are touring, writing new material and in a good place. I want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... This was all done with their blessing. And I don't wanna hear that word solo.²

Yorke wrote and played the record himself. Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's producer, produced and arranged it, and Stanley Donwood, who makes the band's artwork, did the sleeve. “Black Swan” will play over the closing credits of A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater's film of the Philip K. Dick novel, which has yet to open.

Parts of the record had been around for a few years waiting to be finished. Yorke says he had wanted to do something like this for ages, and that making it was quick and fun. Inevitably it is more beats and electronics. But it's songs.²

The Eraser, tracklist