Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood have teamed up with acclaimed hip-hop artist DOOM to release a track on the U.K. independent label Lex Records’ 10th anniversary compilation Complex.
The album will feature new songs from bands that have appeared on the label over the past decade, and starting next week Lex Records will release one song off the anniversary mix every Monday for the following 10 weeks.
Also starting next week fans can pre-order the vinyl version of the album, which is set to drop in January.
The DOOM/Yorke/Greenwood collaboration track, titled “Retarded Fren,” is the first release from the Complex, and you can listen to the exclusive stream over at Lex Records, which has been DOOM’s label since 2005.
Yorke’s public appreciation for the hip-hop artist dates back to 2009, with his remix of DOOM’s “Gazillion Ear.”
Different from the fluid combination of Yorke’s eerie intonation and haunting synthesizer behind DOOM’s thumping vocals on the “Gazillion Ear” remix, “Retarded Fren” takes on a more industrial tone.
Yorke and Greenwood back “Retarded Fren” with staccato drum machine beats and frenzied strings sampled from Greenwood’s “There Will Be Blood” soundtrack with a rhythm similar to Tom Waits’ “Clap Hands.”
