There are a lot of things to say about Radiohead and all the amazing and interesting things about their music like math, technology, experimentation.
You can also find a small book called Kid Algebra: The Euclidean and Maximally Uniform Rhythms of Radiohead by Brad Osborn, in which all these small subtle details are analyzed.
He describes their music as a Goldilocks principle, saying that it inhabits a space between mundane conventions and pure experimentation, the perfect “sweet spot”.
Here I would like to share this interesting transformation of one of their songs into an orchestral soundtrack for the film Blue Planet II, produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in 2017.
For this film, in which they worked with composer Hans Zimmer, they decided to use their song Bloom from their eight studio album, The King of Limbs (2011). This song was formerly written by singer Thom York and was inspired by the Blue Planet movie. Therefore, this was perfect.
This song is rhythmically very complex, full of polyrhythm, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for a film about all the beauty and depth of the ocean. Thus, this was the challenge. How to turn it into an immersive soundtrack for the ocean?
Well, in this video they (Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood) and Hans Zimmer explain the surprisingly simple yet effective process and technique they used to achieve this. Just a little spoiler, the answers lies in Pointillism.
And this is the final, magical, version of the song for the soundtrack.
Reference
1. B. Osborn – Kid Algebra: Radiohead’s euclidean and maximally even rhythm. 2014.
