Thom Yorke’s surprise album, ‘Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes,’ hits BitTorrent

Here we go again.

Or not.

Less than three weeks after U2 dropped a new album, “Songs of Innocence,� into the iTunes libraries of an estimated half-billion people -- touching off widespread controversy about possible digital overreach -- Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke released a solo record online early Friday with little advance warning.

But he didn’t use Apple’s help to get the music out.

In a statement signed by the singer and his longtime producer Nigel Godrich, Yorke said “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes� is being made available through BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file-sharing software, in an attempt “to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around.�

“If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to people who are creating the work,� the statement continued. “Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.�

Yorke and Godrich went on to say that “the torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey.�

“Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes,� on sale as a digital download for $6, follows Yorke’s 2006 solo debut, “The Eraser.� Earlier this week Yorke shared a photo of a white vinyl record, leading to speculation that he or Radiohead had possibly completed a new studio album.

Twitter: @mikaelwood