Singer songwriter Thom Yorke of Radiohead has recently released a reworked rendition of “Bloom” from the band’s 2011’s album King Of Limbs. The new version is being used in a Greenpeace ad during Shark Week.
Yorke’s solo rework was originally recorded during his Electric Lady Studios session in 2019 and as Brooklyn Vegan mentions, the song is piano-heavy and intricate. The song is accompanied by an animated video to raise awareness of the overfishing of sharks.
The video’s main character is an animated shark swimming in the ocean, it follows a dark shadow that can be seen along the ocean floor. It finally looks up and sees dozens of other sharks caught in hooks, bloodied. The shark tries to help but is eventually left alone in the depths. The video then cuts to real life shark hunting footage showing bloodied and maimed sharks being hoisted aboard a ship. The graphic scene is accompanied by statistics on overfishing and its detrimental effects on the shark population, stating that “in the last 50 years the global shark population has plummeted by 70 percent.”
The song was previously rerecorded and titled “Ocean (Bloom)” alongside Hans Zimmer for the production of BBC’s Blue Planet II in 2017.
Yorke and his new band The Smile have been quite active this year sharing “Bending Hectic”, “Skrting On The Surface”, “5.17”, “That’s How Horses Are”, “The Smoke” and “You Will Never Work In Television Again.” The band also recently released their debut album A Light For Attracting Attention in May.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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