Radiohead Daydreams Its Way Into Movie Theaters

Radiohead, "Daydreaming" (screen capture, YouTube)

So you may have heard about this little album called A Moon Shaped Pool released by some crowd called Radiohead over the weekend. Or maybe not. The band did all it could to erase its online presence in the run-up to the album’s release, a fine piece of counter-marketing that also bespeaks the album’s concerns about the Internet, privacy and surveillance: the opening track, “Burn the Witch” contains such lyrics as “Loose talk around tables/Abandon all reason/Avoid all eye contact/Do not react/Shoot the messengers.” You can assume that Thom Yorke probably isn’t sharing selfies on Instagram. The single’s blackly comic video is a mash-up of beloved British children’s show Trumpton and cult thriller The Wicker Man.

Having sent fans into a frenzy of praise for the new album, on Saturday the band also released a video for a second single, “Daydreaming,” directed by none other than Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s very typical of Anderson: there are a lot of tracking shots. The video was screened in 35mm in select theaters, reports Vulture. New York’s Metrograph, Chicago’s Music Box, and the Alamo Drafthouse each received a copy of the video, accompanied by a note that reads, “We’ve made a film, here it is. We’d be happy if you played it!”