Radiohead fans seeking a studio fix will get some consolation on 25 February, when Thom Yorke's new band, Atoms for Peace, release their debut album, Amok.
Like every Yorke-related release worth its salt, Amok appears to have a Stanley Donwood cover, portraying a monochrome apocalypse, with flooding, comets and signifiers of Los Angeles such as the Hollywood sign. LA was where Atoms of Peace – consisting of Yorke, Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco – recorded. "We were at Flea's house," Yorke recently told Rolling Stone. "We got wasted, played pool and listened to Fela Kuti all night."
"Atoms is an ongoing and open-ended project, where it leads i know not for certain … which is what is nice about it," Yorke wrote on Tuesday. "I'm still reeling from being on tour for much of the year but we are planning to get together and play etc next year! We're figuring all that out right now."
The band have previously described Amok as a "mechanistic" record, a "compromise" between Yorke's desire for a dance album and the pressure for him to sing on it ("or nobody's going to fucking care," he told Rolling Stone). The first single, Default, was released in September. Other songs include Reverse Running, Ingenue and Judge Jury and Executioner.
Atoms for Peace were formed when Yorke needed a band to tour his debut solo album, The Eraser. While they were first assembled in 2009, the group wasn't named until 2010, when it became clear they were an ongoing project. They have since played concerts at several festivals, though never in the UK.
