Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke's new album was given a surprise release via torrent downloading platform BitTorrent. "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" is now available for download via the app for $6.

While Thom Yorke's new album, which has eight tracks, can be downloaded via BitTorrent, fans can also get it as a deluxe vinyl record with a digital download for $48.

In a statement, York described the release as a way to test whether that kind of release can be something recording artists choose and push through with when releasing their works online.

"It's an experiment to see if the mechanics of the sytem are something that the general public can get its head around," said York in a joint statement with producer and collaborator Nigel Godrich.

"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, enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content so sell it themselves," the statement continued.

Yorke hinted at a new project when he posted a photo of a mysterious white vinyl record on his Twitter account, captioned with a link to his Tumblr account. Godrich also tweeted Yorke's picture, which prompted fans to speculate whether the record was a solo effort by Yorke or by the band.

Thom Yorke's new album "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" was described by the New York Times' Jon Pareles as a combination of "elegy and irritant as he questions and undermines song forms. Most of the new tracks don't immediately announce riffs and verses; they linger over intros, coalesce, metamorphose and drift away. Solidity is elusive and fragile at best."

While Yorke's new album is the first paid torrent, the studio effort wasn't the first time he worked with BitTorrent.

In 2007, Radiohead's album "In Rainbows" was made vailable through the peer-to-peer service via a pay-what-you-want mode.