It’s been 3 years since Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke, Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco) made their live stage debut, but now the quintet are ready to unveil the result of months of studio experimentation as well. First up, we have a new single, “Default,” in which Yorke & Co. pick up where his solo LP, The Eraser, left off — right down to the artwork’s ocean of black and white lines from Radiohead visual art collaborator Stanley Donwood. Even as a fan of the previous set, this feels like a welcome step forward, breathing new life into the somewhat tense, blipped-out format as if this lineup found a way to finally realize Yorke’s vision in its most natural form. They’re just getting started, though, as Yorke took to his other band’s Dead Air Space site today with an album announcement:
The name comes from some shows of The Eraser that happened a couple of years ago with Mauro, Joey, Nigel and Flea. We got a big buzz from them and discovered loads of energy from transforming the music from electronic to live, and so afterwards, we carried on for a few days in the studio and decided to make it a loose, on-going thing.
Immersed in the area between the two…electronic and live.
The first tune we’d like you to hear is Default.
A 12″ vinyl version will follow next month and an album will eventually follow that next year.
According to the band’s publicist, Atoms For Peace’s debut LP will arrive in 2013 via XL Recordings. Stream the new single above.