Last week, a hacker leaked 18 hours of demos from Radiohead’s OK Computer sessions.
Now, the band have responded by officially releasing the leaked material themselves. Jonny Greenwood said via a statement, “We got hacked last week – someone stole Thom’s minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it.”
“So instead of complaining – much – or ignoring it, we’re releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion. Just for the next 18 days. So for £18 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom.”
He added, “Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download. Rainy out, isn’t it though?”
The release can be purchased here. Radiohead celebrated the 20th anniversary of OK Computer in 2017 with a reissue entitled OKOKOK. The reissue came with three previously unreleased tracks, unseen artwork and a book of Thom Yorke’s notes.
In Crack Magazine’s recent Issue 100 cover story with Yorke, the frontman reflected on the band’s trajectory. He said, “We went through the whole crazy OK Computer period and I became catatonic at the end of it. Then we worked really hard for a year and a half with really not that many breaks and it was really intense. We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing, and I was refusing to rehearse anything! Imagine, if you will, the chaos.”
