Radiohead is alive again

The band surprised fans by personally sending them promotional art for the song, ‘Burn the Witch’, in their mailboxes.

May 05, 2016 05:34 pm | Updated 07:07 pm IST

Since a couple of days, when Radiohead's online presence went blank white, fans knew something was brewing. True to form, on May 3, the Oxfordshire band released first evidence of its reconnaissance, releasing a fresh but long-in-the-works song titled Burn the Witch. Its tense haunting quality is complemented by a claymation music video that jerks smoothly along to a incendiary crescendo.

On May 1, the offbeat band had erased all traces of their virtual existence, including all content from their website and social media portals.

This development didn't so much shock fans as confirm their best-held suspicions about the band's long-term intentions.

FYI, How to Disappear Completely is the title of Radiohead's self-confessed favourite song from their discography.

But for the most part, any sign of activity — or complete erasure thereof — from a band with a website called >deadairspace , is great news for their fans.

The band with the eerie sound has taken a while to reassemble since the suspension of activity following their 2011 release King of Limbs. Of course, there was the Polyfauna app, which takes users on a virtual reality trip of alien landscapes to the sound of surreal music.

Over the past half a decade, Yorke has released two albums independent of the band — Amok in 2013 with Atoms For Peace, the supergroup he formed, and his second solo album Tomorrow's Modern Boxes in 2014.

Radiohead has long been an industry maverick with little respect for conventions and protocol. If their 2000 album Kid A 's drastic shift to an electronic sound exhibited their disdain for the rockstar brand they had been saddled with, they have also 'experimented' quite radically with distribution methods — choosing, in 2007, to release their seventh studio album In Rainbows on their own, under an Internet-only Pay-What-You-Want model, in a bid to avoid the middleman record companies; Tomorrow's Modern Boxes , was released as a bit-torrent bundle that became the most-downloaded legal torrent in 2014.

This time, they pulled yet another unprecedented gimmick, by mailing fans this very special but creepy package a couple of days ahead of the song's release:

They really do know where we live!

The music video for ‘Burn the Witch’, directed by Chris Hopewell and produced by digital design agency Jacknife, is seemingly a tribute to the 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man . It depicts a government official / surveyor being given a tour of a 'model village' that turns out to display all the signs of being a deviant and medieval society — full with red-crosses on doors, men with daggers and minotaur hats circling a woman tied to a tree, gallows decorated with flowers, home-bred alcoholism.

The relentless punchiness of the strings section chugs on through the entire song, keeping the listener's heart-rate up and elevating the contrast between the whimsical clay actors and the video's disturbing storyline. In the second verse, the rigid strings thaw perceptibly and form fluid ribbons that cascade in counterpoints to Yorke's falsetto. The percussion is bouncy, heavy and spartan, augmented by the piercing strings and droning bass.

As the camera stops and stutters its way through the mayor's tour of the town, Thom Yorke's baleful voice howls ominous lyrics such as Stay in the shadows | Cheer the gallows | This is a round-up | This is a low-flying panic attack | Burn the witch | We know where you live ”.

The surveyor is eventually ushered into and trapped in the belly of giant wooden construction that is set afire as the music blares to a zenith that yanks your hair by the roots. No spoilers here, so watch the video to find out what happens to the endearingly beady-eyed surveyor.

The video's message might be as much philosophical as political, as is Radiohead's wont. According to Rolling Stone magazine, animator Virpi Kittu alluded to the blame-game, discrimination, and mistrust that has led to the prevailing immigration crisis. Witch-hunting has long been a theme Radiohead has been obsessed with, and the title of this song appeared in the artwork for their 2003 release Hail to the Thief .

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.