We had a few complaints that the MP3s of our last record wasn’t encoded at a high enough rate. Some even suggested we should have used FLACs, but if you even know what one of those is, and have strong opinions on them, you’re already lost to the world of high fidelity and have probably spent far too much money on your speaker-stands.

It’ll be interesting to see if this philosophy holds up as the band moves into more digital-only releases, as they’ve done with a couple of single tracks in the last couple months. It’s all fine and good to not care about MP3 quality when audiophiles can just buy the CD instead, but what about when it’s the only option? It’s not just super nerds who would prefer at least a -v0 bitrate instead of 160CBR.

The whole interview is worth reading (it’s a short one), as Greenwood discusses his personal listening habits and how the band listened to a bunch of 90’s hip-hop via AirTunes while they recorded In Rainbows. [New Yorker via Kottke]

[Ian mackinnon via Brothers Brick]

Also be sure to check out the awesome visualiser, which lets you manipulate the data to adjust the image and rotate around the objects in real-time. The most fun time waster you’ll find all week, guaranteed. [Radiohead]

Radiohead, never ones to shy away from trying new things, has shot its new video for “House of Cards” without using cameras at all. Whaa? Yes, they’ve used two fancy new technologies called Geometric Informatics and Velodyne Lidar. To shoot it using lasers and stuff. Let’s break it down here.

The Geometric Informatics scanning system employs structured light to capture detailed 3D images at close proximity, and was used to render the performances of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, the female lead, and several partygoers. The Velodyne Lidar system uses multiple lasers to capture large environments in 3D, in this case 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute, capturing all of the exterior scenes and wide party shots.

Well, that’s pretty neat. As you can see from the screenshots, it’s pretty old-school-computers looking. Unfortunately, the video was supposed to drop today but was delayed for some reason, so all we have are the screens. I’ll post the video as soon as it comes out. [Pitchfork]

This song came about as a call for remixes by Radiohead for “Nude.” Houston notes that most of the entries were lame, and he wanted to do something a little different that fit in the theme/alternate song title offered (Bad Ideas: Don’t Get Any). And he also came up with this video, which has an awesome retro, Daft Punk-ish Human After All vibe.

It’s entirely possible this was all made on a computer or keyboard, but I’ll take it in good faith it was made as the creator claims. And I’d say this isn’t just a little different, it’s way different and damn spectacular. [Youtube] (Thanks, John )

“It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do,” Yorke told the Hollywood Reporter.” I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”

Yorke and Co. have remained tight-lipped about whether they think the move was a success or not, but the freebie method has been adopted by other artists, notably Nine Inch Nails. The latest group to jump on the freebie bandwagon is Coldplay, aka Radiohead Lite, who announced on Monday that their new single, Violet Hill, would be available for free, and promptly b0rked the interweb* with their selfless gesture. [Reuters]

*The band’s official website crashed.

“If an artist has just delivered an album from studio, we could potentially deliver it to a limited number of users for a higher price. It’s something we’re quite keen to develop; for example, through our own B2C channels—artists’ Web sites.”

This is the dumbest idea ever.

For one, charging more simply to get first dibs at an album is ludicrous on principle. But more to the point (that maybe they’ll heed) this model really presents two choices: Hear it early for an artificially inflated price, or do so for free, probably less than hour after it goes up. Temporality is not value added, and not all music fans are as eager to pay exorbitant prices for immediate access as some of Radiohead’s cabal, so this seems like epic fail waiting to happen. Unless, god forbid, people pay up. In that case, we’re all doomed. [Idolator, Moconews]