Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's track with DOOM goes online

Pitchfork put up a stream on 1 November of a track by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and the rapper DOOM. Yorke doesn't sing a note on it; he and Greenwood made the music, and DOOM does all the talking.

Beats Per Minute hears Greenwood's “Proven Lands”, from his There Will Be Blood score, in the strings, used much as they are on the soundtrack, with small electronic sounds from Yorke laid over them. The track is called “Retarded Fren”, a title critics winced at.

It was made for Complex, a compilation marking ten years of Lex Records, DOOM's label. Lex puts it out a track a week from 7 November. Boom Bip, Doseone and Neon Neon are on it too. DOOM plays the O2 Academy in Oxford, Radiohead's home town, on 10 November.

Beats Per Minute also recalls that Yorke put “Raid” by Madvillain, DOOM's duo with Madlib, on an iTunes celebrity playlist in 2007, played “America's Most Blunted” when he DJed at Low End Theory in Los Angeles, and remixed DOOM's “Gazzillion Ear” from the 2009 album Born Like This. In mid-March Uncut reported that DOOM had told the magazine 3D World that he and Yorke were working on duets. He's cool – he got a lot of ill ass ideas and shit, you know.⁶ Of the duets themselves he said Just like preliminary shit but we'll probably end up doing a whole record together.⁶

DOOM, “Retarded Fren”, the Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood version· JJ DOOM - Topicwatch on youtube →