After dropping some indecipherable, hieroglyphic hints recently, Thom Yorke (Radiohead, Atoms For Peace) has just released a brand new solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.  You can buy it via BitTorrent for $6 for the digital album or £30 (that’s like 10,000,000 drachma) for the deluxe vinyl + digital version.  Below is the announcement:

“Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is a new eight-track record from Thom Yorke.

These are printed with a metallic silver laminate then multi-tone black and a striking neon green; the whole is enclosed in a bespoke anti-static shield bag – a metallised laminated material usually used by the electronics industry for protecting components from electrostatic interference. The bag is printed with neon green on both sides, and has a resealable grip closure.”

Here’s Yorke’s and frequent collaborator/producer Nigel Godrich’s BitTorrent explanation:

“As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record.
The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files..
The files can be anything, but in this case is an ’album’.
It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around …
If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.
Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves.
Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.
If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done.
The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ’cloud’ malarkey.
It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front…
The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.”

Amen to all that!  You can purchase now at tomorrowsmodernboxes.com.  In the meantime, stream brilliant new track A Brain In A Bottle and watch its video below.

It’s been a great week in Tweedy land.  Critics and fans are going bananas for the new Tweedy album Sukierae (Jeff Tweedy album-title mischievousness if there ever was–let’s see you close your eyes and spell it).

Today the father-son duo released the Official Video for track Low Key off of the album produced by the zany Nick Offerman.  The video features John Hodgman, “General Zod,” Chance, Mavis Staples, and the “Littlest Tweedy,” “Glenn Wilcodrums,” “‘Chicago Way’ Albini,” “Conan O’Richter” (the last three as dubbed by Hodgman), plus the Tweedy duo.  The video is so acerbic and cute, it’ll drive you bananas.

Not to mention Low Key is a great tune and song.  Enjoy.

Like many, we are suckers for the songwriting of Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, etc.).  Tweedy’s new father-son ensemble Tweedy released its initial album, the critically-acclaimed (natch) Sukierae, on Tuesday and celebrated with a release show at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music.  The relateds were backed by their touring band (Jim Elkington, Darin Gray, and Liam Cunningham. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius), along with Wilco guitarist  Nels Cline who came out for the encore.  Père Tweedy also performed solo at times.  The setlist (holy setlist!!–see below) also included Wilco and Uncle Tupelo songs.  The first song, Nobody Dies Anymore, is worth the price of admission alone and a purchase of Sukierae HERE.

SET LIST:

Nobody Dies Anymore
Fake Fur Coat
Diamond Light Pt.1
Flowering
High As Hello
New Moon
Honey Combed
Desert Bell
Summer Noon
Wait For Love
Slow Love
World Away
Low Key
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
New Madrid
Hummingbird
You and I
Please Tell My Brother
Born Alone
Hesitating Beauty
Jesus, Etc.
Radio King
Passenger Side
I’m the Man Who Loves You
A Shot in the Arm

Encore:
Love Like a Wire
Only The Lord Knows
Give Back The Key To My Heart
California Stars

We first heard trending Londoner Kwabs this summer on Later with Jools Holland in a commanding performance of his encouraging track Wrong Or Right (you can only watch the mesmerizing Official Video for the song at bottom since we can’t share the flipping BBC’s Holland-show vignette–the BBC will allow every citizen on the planet to watch Jools’ videos EXCEPT Americans–what the sailboat??!!).

We love Kwabs’ compassionate lyrics combined with his instantly-catchy melodies.  And the dude can sing!  Today comes another great live performance by Kwabs that was thankfully captured well by La Blogothèque (BBC? Cha! Ya vex I!).  Watch below as Kwabs performs his superb new single Walk (hereby, our Song of the Week) for LumiaLive down in the Deep End of the Chadderton Baths in Manchester.

Afterwards check out the just-released Official Videos for Walk, Pray For Love and Wrong Or Right.

It won’t be long before Kwabs is commonly revered.  And deservedly so.

Volcano Choir has today released a new official video for great track Tiderays off of 2013′s Repave, our No. 3 Best Album of 2013. The video, created as part of the 551 Project, was directed by Kyle Buckley & Andi Woodward and features dancers from the Milwaukee Ballet.   Simply beautiful.

What a treasure trove. These past few weeks have seen an embarrassment of Elbow riches.  First, the band’s appearance at the iTunes Festival in Camden was made available for viewing (until October 31st, you can go HERE).  And now the band’s entire set at Eden Project in Cornwall is available for viewing courtesy of Eden Sessions.  Check a few particular gems out below and then watch the entire set performed in the magical venue.  Outstanding.

The interweb was agog yesterday with the semaphoric, ever-enigmatic news that Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood had dispensed pixels depicting something white and round (see at bottom), which may or may not be representative of somebody’s new album or, really, anything musical at all.  Yay!  In the words of the seminal Johnny Rotten from way back:  “Ever feel like you’ve been cheated??”

In the meantime in Comparatively Concrete News, Radiohead’s drummer Phil Selway has released two tracks from his impending album Weatherhouse.  While nothing can touch the loft of Radiohead’s output, Selway acquits himself incredibly well on the tracks Coming Up For Air and This Will End In Tears (oh, the uplift).  Check out the videos for both and below them the better-sounding audio tracks after.

Bring on Weatherhouse (before that white, roundish blob does what it has to do)!!

It’s been a little too quiet on the Moby front in the aftermath of his release of our No. 7 Best Album of 2013, Innocents.  Innocents was a tour de force et de coeur that took us up and away.  The album features several superb cameos, not least of which is Damien Jurado’s vocal on the uplifting gem Almost Home.  Now comes a remix by DJ Sebastien (Leger) that  adds to the uplift. We love everything about the remix and video, including the footage of Joshua Tree and the three-night run last year at the Fonda Theater.  The Sebastien Remix:  a great way to kick off the week.

You can buy the Sebastien Remix HERE.  You can buy the Live From the Fonda package HERE.

Afterwards below, you can watch the Live From the Fonda capture of the song followed by the touching original official video for Almost Home.

It was a Spoon Summer here at Lefort.  Like many indie-rock lovers, Spoon wowed us with their fantastic album, They Want My Soul, and then took television and live audiences by storm throughout the season.

This week in Milwaukee the band added to their live laurels by paying homage to the gone-to-soon Jay Reatard.  We had forgotten that Milwaukee was the site of Reatard’s last concert on New Year’s Eve in 2009 as opener for Spoon (two weeks before Reatard was found dead in his house in Memphis).  Watch below as Britt Daniel and the boys perform a riveting cover of Reatard’s song No Time (an extra cut released on Reatard’s collected Matador Singles ’08.  Reatard’s original audio and song’s lyrics (harrowing harbingers of his demise) can be checked out after.

Excuse us while we slip out to listen to Reatard’s album Watch Me Fall, one of our all-time faves and highly recommended listening.

No Time:

“I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
I’m getting lost and tossed around this mess of pains
I think I’m tremblin’ and frownin’ and tired o’your stupid game
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine

I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine”