Mysterious vinyl appears

An unlabeled white-label vinyl that surfaced in U.S. and U.K. record stores this weekend appears to be a new Rolling Stones single released under the alias The Cockroaches. (rollingstone.co.uk) Reports published on April 10 said the record is a vinyl-only single called “Rough And Twisted,” with copies reaching select shops on Saturday, April 11. Posters with QR codes had already appeared around Camden in north London, sending fans to a Universal Music-run Cockroaches website. (rollingstone.co.uk; stereogum.com) By April 11, videos from buyers and store visits were circulating online, and ABC Audio reported that The Cockroaches’ Instagram Story was reposting clips of the record being played. That coverage said Mick Jagger’s voice was audible on the track and that the site showed GPS coordinates when users flipped an image of the vinyl, pointing people toward participating stores. (wdrv.com) The stunt landed one week before Record Store Day on April 18, when independent shops in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries are already preparing for hundreds of exclusive releases. Record Store Day says the event began in 2008 and now includes roughly 1,400 participating stores in the United States, while Record Store Day UK says more than 280 U.K. shops are taking part this year. (recordstoreday.com; recordstoreday.co.uk) That timing helps explain why an anonymous disc could move so fast through collector circles: stores are already receiving limited-run stock, and buyers are already watching social feeds for surprise drops. Rough Trade’s Record Store Day 2026 page says official in-store releases begin April 18, with leftover U.S. stock not going online until 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on April 19 and U.K. stock until 8:00 p.m. British Summer Time on April 20. (roughtrade.com) The Cockroaches is not a random name in Stones history. ABC Audio said fans identified it as an alias the band used for secret shows in the 1970s, which is why the London posters quickly turned a local teaser into a wider guessing game. (wdrv.com) Multiple April 10 reports tied the single to a larger rollout. Stereogum, citing The Times of London, said the song is the first release from the Rolling Stones’ 25th studio album, due in July, and that producer Andrew Watt returned after working on the band’s 2023 album *Hackney Diamonds*. (stereogum.com) The same reporting said there are no concerts planned around the release. A representative told The Times, in comments quoted by Stereogum, that “there are no concerts planned,” after reports that possible 2026 tour plans had been dropped. (stereogum.com) For now, the mystery record is doing exactly what a white-label release is built to do: move from shop counters to group chats before it ever reaches streaming services. The label on the disc stayed blank, but the clues around it did not. (wdrv.com; rollingstone.co.uk)