On February 14th, 2011, Radiohead launched their Valentine Project, ‘The King Of Limbs’. It was the announcement of Radiohead’s 8th studio album. The album was supposed to be released digitally on February 19th and pre-orders were available starting the 14th.
Fans had two main options for pre-ordering. A digital album or a Newspaper album. In both cases the album would be made available starting Saturday the 19th, the Newspaper album is set to ship on May 9th, 2011, containing two 10″ vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve, a CD and large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold it all together.
The King Of Limbs will, however, be on general release on CD and 12” vinyl in all music stores and digital retailers from March 28th. As with their previous album ‘In Rainbows’ the band will partner with XL Recordings (TBD Records in the USA & Canada and Hostess Entertainment in Japan & Asia).
With everything ready on their website on Friday February 18th, the band decided to bring forward the release by a day rather than wait until the planned date of Saturday, Feb 19 to deliver the music.
As rumoured in the week of the announcement the album turned out to have 8 tracks. Not all of the 8 tracks are entirely new. We have heard half of them before, in one form or another. Lotus Flower,Morning Mr. Magpie and Give Up The Ghost have all been played live before, either on a webcast or live show. Closing track of The King Of Limbs, Separator, has been played live as Mouse Dog Bird at Thom Yorke’s Green Party benefit in Cambridge last year.
There’s been some speculation on the contents of the album, expecting a bit more than the eight tracks that have been made available digitally last month. But this edition of The King Of Limbs has those same eight tracks. The cd is housed in a 4-page wallet, with the actual cd in a slit on the right side. On the left page you can see 8 illustrations accompanied by the following titles; Roots Of Roots, Ragnorok, Urpflanze, The King Of Limbs, Codex, Axis Mundi, Yggdrasil and Arbor Philosophica. The albums credits are below. The back has the word RADIOHEAD mirrored and the track list. Catalogue number is TICK001CD.
For the vinyl (TICK001LP) expect the same front and back as the cd. The actual record is housed in an inner sleeve with a drawing (like the right page on the cd edition) on one side, and the drawings and credits on the other side. Inside the sleeve you’ll find a card with a download code to obtain the digital edition of The King Of Limbs.
Expect the same edition of the CD and Vinyl in all territories as all labels (XL Recordings, TBD Records, Hostess Entertainment) have their logo’s on the back. There’s one other logo, which is Ticker Tape Ltd. It looks like this is the name of the band’s own label and publisher.
And last, but not least, the credits: The music and sounds of The King Of Limbs were conjured up by Radiohead and Nigel Godrich. The imagery was summoned up by Zachariah Wildwood and Donald Twain. Engineered and mixed by Nigel Godrich. Additional engineering by Drew Brown. Additional assistance by Darrell Thorp and Bryan Cooke. Flugelhorn on Bloom and Codex performed by Noel Langley and Yazz Ahmed. Strings on Codex performed by The London Telefilmonic Orchestra, led by Levine Andrale and conducted by Robert Ziegler. Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering & DVD. Also thanks to Peter Yozell, and Neil Whitcher. Studio equipment etc., kept going by Plank. Ourselves kept going by Kat and Tim. And our office! A big thank you very much indeed to Drew Barrymore. This one’s for new Henry, Zohar and all our little ones. Hello Guys
As you’ve noticed no recording location has been given, but thanking Drew Barrymore might confirm the earlier rumours that the album was indeed recorded at Barrymore’s house. Zachariah Wildwood and Donald Twain are credited for the artwork, who are obviously the new alter egos of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke.
Radiohead released The King Of Limbs on Monday, March 28th in Europe and Tuesday, March 29th in North America. Several countries have an earlier street date: Friday, March 25th.
Here are the lyrics of the songs in The King of Limbs:
Bloom
Morning Mr. Magpie
Little by Little
Lotus Flower
Codex
Give up the Ghost
Separator
Sources:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/
