Radiohead announce The King of Limbs, a download on Saturday

Radiohead announced their eighth album, The King of Limbs, on their website yesterday, and the download is out this Saturday, 19 February. Orders opened the same day at thekingoflimbs.com.

The title comes from a pollarded oak in Savernake Forest in Wiltshire, thought to be about 1,000 years old. It stands about three miles from Tottenham House, the listed country house where the band recorded part of In Rainbows. A new press photo out today, in black and white, has the band leaning against a tree in a wood.

There is no tracklist yet, but fans who found a Japanese version of the order site, not yet live, saw the album listed as eight tracks and DRM-free. Within the day the “8 Tracks” line had been swapped for the title. Eight songs would make it the shortest Radiohead album by song count.

The deluxe edition is what the band call the world's first newspaper album¹. It holds two clear 10-inch records in a sleeve made for them, a CD, large sheets of artwork and 625 tiny pieces of it, all wrapped in full-colour oxo-degradable plastic. It costs £30 with MP3s, postage included, and ships on 9 May, with the download sent on release day. One buyer of the download will also be sent a signed two-track 12-inch.

For its first weeks the album is sold only from the band's site, on their own Ticker Tape imprint. CD and 12-inch vinyl reach shops and digital stores on 28 March through XL Recordings, TBD Records in the US and Canada and Hostess in Japan and Asia, the partners Radiohead had for In Rainbows. Nigel Godrich produced it.

Little has been said about the music. Last September Phil Selway described the band sifting 18 months of material with the album still undecided, and Colin Greenwood called the rehearsals noisy and chaotic. DIY has guessed at the songs from what Thom Yorke has played live over the past two years: “Lotus Flower”, “Skirting on the Surface”, “Open the Floodgates” and “Judge, Jury and Executioner”. It also hopes for “Lift”, an older unreleased song that fans have wanted on a record for years.

Chris Hufford, the band's co-manager, told Music Week that releasing the album online was the logical step on from In Rainbows, which fans had paid what they liked for, and that the managers answer to Radiohead rather than to shops or labels. Our allegiances are to the band³⁰, he said.

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