Thom Yorke, Burial and Four Tet release an unannounced 12-inch

Four Tet, Burial and Thom Yorke have released two new tracks, “Her Revolution” and “His Rope”, on a 12-inch on XL Recordings, on sale today only in person at London record shops. It is a black-label record with no names on it, vinyl only.

Nobody announced it. The London shop Phonica gave the names away on Instagram and Sounds of the Universe posted too, both of them just reopened as England's second lockdown ends today. Sounds of the Universe's 100 copies were gone the same day. XL put teasers of black-label releases on YouTube through the day but made no statement, and a representative would not confirm the artists to Pitchfork, pointing instead to the shops' posts.

Both tracks, about 11 minutes between them, were on YouTube within hours through unofficial uploads; there is no official audio.

The three last made a record together with “Ego” / “Mirror”, a 12-inch on Four Tet's Text Records first played on Rinse FM in March 2011. In 2016 Yorke mentioned another track he had made with them, whose vocal Kieran Hebden, Four Tet himself, thought too dark. I did another thing, but the vocal was too dark, according to Kieran. For me, that's, 'Really? Too dark, even for me? OK.'⁷