Yesterday, a post emerged in a Radiohead subreddit, in which user santicol revealed that a group of fans had come into contact with someone who had obtained a treasure trove of rare Radiohead material. 18 hours of unreleased recordings from the sessions surrounding the bands seminal record OK Computer were being held ransom for $150k by bootleggers and traders.

Now, the bootlegging rascals have released the 18-hours of audio in its entirety for free. The leaked material features previously unreleased tracks (that have been performed live), bits and bobs of riffs and ambient sound clips, early interpretations of classic OK Computer tracks — including a 12-minute version of ‘Paranoid Android’ and ‘Exit Music’.

A lot of the non-album material was later released officially by Radiohead as part of the 20th-anniversary reissue of the record —including fan favourites ‘Lift’ and ‘I Promise’— as well as a version of ‘True Love Waits’ which initially featured as a live cut on 2001’s I Might Be Wrong before it was reinterpreted as a luscious studio version on 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. There’s also an early version of the In Rainbows track ‘Nude.’ It’s all quite mesmerising.

The material leaked in the Radiohead subreddit, where one user posted “The sessions have been leaked. The genie is out of the bottle and it is now the witching hour.” You can hunt for yourself here.

Check out Radiohead – ‘Nude’

Update: In an attempt to beat the bootleggers, Radiohead decided to release the hacked music themselves, and they’re donating the proceeds to charity.

“We got hacked last week,” the band shared. “Someone stole Thom’s minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it.

“So instead of complaining – much – or ignoring it, we’re releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion.

“Just for the next 18 days. So for £18 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom.

“Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download. Rainy out, isn’t it though?”

You can read more about it here.