The Smile put “Don't Get Me Started” online after a shops-only 12-inch

The Smile released “Don't Get Me Started” digitally on Thursday 8 August, with an animated video by Weirdcore, the audiovisual artist who, Rolling Stone notes, worked with Radiohead on “Glass Eyes”. The song had reached record shops on Friday 2 August, on a limited double A-side 12-inch with another new one, “The Slip”, which stays on vinyl only, off the streaming services.

Nobody announced the record. In the days before, the band posted pictures of what looked like a record shop's shelves, and that was the whole hint. Fans' rips from the vinyl were going round online within days. The 12-inch is on XL, in the label's house bag redesigned by Stanley Donwood.

Sam Petts-Davies, who produced Wall of Eyes, produced and mixed “Don't Get Me Started”, and it was recorded in Oxford and at Abbey Road. The band first played it in Glasgow on 20 March, on the Wall of Eyes tour, and kept it in the set through the spring and summer shows. Their August dates in Europe were cancelled in July when Jonny Greenwood needed emergency hospital treatment for an infection, so the record comes with the band off the road.