Music

Radiohead’s PolyFauna App Gets Updated With New Music, Unreleased Thom Yorke Vocals

Roughly seven months ago, Radiohead released PolyFauna, an audio-visual experiment released as a free app that included sounds from the group’s 2011 album The King Of Limbs. Today, the group updated the project with new music and visuals, including unreleased vocals from Thom Yorke, effectively making this Radiohead’s first musical release in three years. Yorke teased the update over the past week, posting illustrations of PolyFauna on his shared Tumblr with Stanley Donwood, What Have You Done To My Face

The interactive project was created in collaboration with digital art/design group Universal Everything, Nigel Godrich, and Donwood in an effort to give fans a “chance to live inside the music,” explained Matt Pyke of Universal Everything to The Creators Project in an interview. PolyFauna invites users to explore a mesmerizing world filled with patterned environments, lush soundscapes, and unique experiences for each user. 

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“This became an atmospheric, fragmented memory of the track “Bloom” from King of Limbs,” Pyke said. Now, PolyFauna is more than just a way to extend the experience of the band’s last full-length, but a synesthetic opportunity to preview new material, and “live inside” sketches of what could be an upcoming Radiohead release. 

In July, Johnny Greenwood told BBC 6 that they planned to rehearse and possibly record new material this month, and let’s hope the app update signifies that they’re following through with that plan. See some new paintings from Yorke’s shared Tumblr below:

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