Radiohead is officially releasing a treasure trove: 18 hours of studio sessions recorded while the band was in the midst of completing the seminal 1997 album OK Computer.
The recordings were originally made available last week when they were uploaded online through non-official means.
A statement from the band sheds some details on the situation. “We got hacked last week—someone stole Thom [Yorke]’s minidisc archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it,” wrote Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood in a press release.
In keeping with the band’s record of subversive advertising, the information that the recordings would be available for purchase was released to the public via Greenwood’s Twitter where he simply shared a screenshot of that same email.
https://t.co/iTcF2VjYRdhttps://t.co/6Pao0hThbU pic.twitter.com/OepiMlEL73
— Jonny Greenwood (@JnnyG) June 11, 2019
The band has uploaded the recordings to Bandcamp under the title Minidiscs [Hacked] and is selling them for a minimum £18, approximately $23. Radiohead will only sell the collection for 18 days. After June 29, the recordings will disappear into the ether once again. Proceeds will go to Extinction Rebellion, a climate change group and “a socio-political movement which uses nonviolent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse.”
Extinction Rebellion recently occupied London streets in late April, blocking roads and bridges for 10 days in an effort to disrupt daily life and bring attention to the ever-present climate change emergency.
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