Radiohead frontman and pseudo-alien (in the best way) Thom Yorke debuted a new song titled “The Axe” on Tuesday night while performing in Florence, Italy.
Yorke performed the new track during the first stop on his brief, 12-date European solo tour. “The Axe” is a cryptic lullaby for a trance, set to crackling electronica beats and Yorke’s equally eerie and lonely vocals.
Yorke has left a trail of puzzling social media threads throughout the last year, tweeting detached phrases like “disinformation” and “can you see his smile?” while spurring rumors that he will release new music soon. Last December, Yorke released three new tracks, titled “I Am a Very Rude Person,” “Saturdays” and “Two Feet Off the Ground.” Though Radiohead released A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016, Yorke has not released new solo material since 2014’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.
As of last year, Yorke’s solo material is available to stream on Spotify, despite the musician’s outspoken stance against music streaming services—Yorke removed material from the platform in 2013, calling it “the last desperate fart from a dying corpse.” (And speaking of which, Yorke recently provided the score for Luca Guadagnino’s remake of the classic 1977 horror film Suspiria).
Yorke will rejoin Radiohead for a longer North American tour this summer. Find a full list of the band’s upcoming tour dates here and watch Yorke perform “The Axe” below. You can listen to a 1995 Radiohead performance from the Paste archives further down.