The Smile announce Cutouts and share two of its songs

The Smile have announced Cutouts, their third album, out on XL Recordings on 4 October. Two of its ten songs are out now, both with videos by the audiovisual artist Weirdcore: the opener, “Foreign Spies”, which is new, and “Zero Sum”, which the band have played since the first night of their tour in Dublin on 7 March.

The band spent the week before the announcement posting ciphered messages. One, read with a Polybius square, spelled out “three zero sum”, and “Zero Sum” turns out to be track three. The official track list still printed the ninth title only as “UGcgWGFkcWE=”, but fans had already decoded it as “No Words”.

Sam Petts-Davies produced the record, and the London Contemporary Orchestra arranged its strings. Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke painted the cover while it was being made, and Rolling Stone reports that a line in “Zero Sum” gives it its title. “Don't Get Me Started” and “The Slip”, from the 12-inch that turned up in record shops earlier this month, are at six and eight.

No Smile tour goes with it: the August dates were cancelled in July when Jonny Greenwood was taken seriously ill, and Yorke's solo tour of New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Japan comes next.

The band sent the record off down a stream, to be carried to a river and then the sea. We lovingly submit our latest 45-minute (?) record Cutouts¹, they wrote.

Cutouts, as announced