Radiohead erases internet presence

On their 2000 album Kid A, Radiohead told the world how to disappear completely. Now it seems the band has taken their own advice to heart. As rumors surrounding the group’s forthcoming studio album continue to swirl, Radiohead has erased all its Facebook and Twitter posts. Reddit users also noted on Sunday that Radiohead had steadily reduced the opacity on its website until it assumed an eerie blankness.

Frontman Thom Yorke, who recently took to Twitter to assure fans he was “as f–ked off as you are” about the difficulty of buying Radiohead concert tickets, also deleted all his tweets. Radiohead’s other members, including drummer Philip Selway and guitarist Jonny Greenwood, had not erased their social media presences.

The band’s internet disappearance comes after some U.K fans received leaflets Saturday with the cryptic message “Sing the song of sixpence that goes ‘Burn the witch'” and the Radiohead logo. The phrase refers to an obscure song by the band that’s more than a decade old.

A man claiming to be Radiohead’s manager said in April that the band’s ninth studio album — and first since 2011’s The King of Limbs — would arrive in June and be “like nothing you’ve ever heard.” Management for the band soon discredited his comments, saying that despite his affiliation with Radiohead he “plays no operational role.”

In March, Radiohead announced a U.S. tour that includes headlining stops at Madison Square Garden and Lollapalooza. The announcement came after news emerged that the band had registered two new companies in January and February; Radiohead also registered new companies before releasing Limbs and 2007’s In Rainbows. And Greenwood hinted last fall that new music was on the way.

Though Radiohead have largely stayed quiet since Limbs and its subsequent tour, its members haven’t. Yorke released Amok with his supergroup Atoms for Peace in 2013 and his second solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, in 2014. Greenwood scored Paul Thomas Anderson’s films The Master and Inherent Vice, while also recording an album, Junun, with Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and a group of Indian musicians in 2015. Selway also released a solo album of his own in 2014.

Radiohead’s most recent musical release was a rejected theme song for the 2015 James Bond film Spectre, which the band shared in December — via Yorke’s Twitter.