NEW YORK and LONDON, April 14 - Last.fm announced today that Portishead's long-awaited new album, Third, will be made exclusively available on the site, in its entirety, for free from April 21, a week before its official release.

Third is the Bristol band's first studio album in 11 years, and each of its 11 tracks will be made available for free, full-length, on-demand streaming on Last.fm for 7 days leading up the official release on April 28.

Martin Stiksel, Last.fm co-founder, said: "We're enormously proud to be able to host the premiere of an album that caps a trilogy of modern classics from Portishead, one of the most innovative and influential bands the U.K.'s ever produced. It means a lot to us, as Portishead was the first artist we ever uploaded to Last.fm, and "Cowboys" from their second album was the first track ever played when we went live in 2002. So it's hugely appropriate that we kick off what aims to be an ongoing series of exclusive album previews with the band that helped us kick off Last.fm."

The album will be available from Monday, April 21 at: Last.fm/music/portishead/third.

This is the first time that Last.fm, which offers free access to the largest licensed catalogue of music on the Web, has collaborated with an individual artist to exclusively premier an album before its official release. All of Portishead's previous albums are also available to stream in full for free at Last.fm/music/portishead.

Currently the fastest-growing free music Web site in the U.S., Last.fm will be offering more exclusive album premieres throughout 2008 and beyond.

About Last.fm

Founded in 2002, Last.fm is the largest global free music platform on the web. Last.fm can offer music fans millions of tracks in every genre for free-on-demand streaming thanks to partnerships with Universal, EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, CD Baby, independent aggregators The Orchard and IODA, and more than 150,000 independent artists and labels - without the need to sign up or download any software. As well as being able to access tracks for free - a service which has seen Last.fm become the fastest-growing free online music network in the U.S. - music fans can also share their music preferences by linking their media player to the Last.fm database. As a result, Last.fm can intelligently recommend songs, artists, local concerts and even other members based on their musical tastes. Last.fm also supports unsigned artists by offering them an unprecedented Artist Royalty program through which they can earn revenue directly from Last.fm every time their music is streamed. Learn more about Last.fm at www.last.fm.