In this week of class, we started off by listening to multiple experimental and industrial electronic artists that our tutor showed us. This included Muslimgauze, Throbbing Gristle, Cedrik Fermont and Einstürzende Neubauten.
We were directed to engage in conversation and discuss their unique aesthetics and how the context of the music engaged with us as a listener. We have been tasked with discussing a song of our own choice with a similar vibe to the tracks we listened to.
have decided to go with the song ‘Bloom’ off the controversial Radiohead album ‘The King Of Limbs’. Bloom is a statement track. It was the first song of the first release after they revolutionised the music industry with In Rainbows. With it being the most accessible album of their career, they needed to make another “turn” in a career of turns.
Bloom is quite simply jazz. It is loops and loops with three or four different melodic ideas happening at the same time and then Thom’s voice takes it to another level, Is it my favorite Radiohead song? Probably not. But I think it has to be one of the band’s favourites since it has made its way onto many set lists despite the fact that it must be challenging to perform live.
You can clearly see this evidence in their exceptional ‘From The Basement’ performance in 2011 in which they’ve employed three different drummers (one of which is their lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood) to replicate the numerous loops and samples heard on the studio recording and to create this wide open free-form aesthetic encapsulating the entire stereo field.
The song was heavily inspired by the natural history documentary series ‘Blue Planet’ created by the BBC in 2001. Thom Yorke spoke about this in a BBC interview saying “It was me lying on the sofa trying to go to sleep after being up too late with my young son and it was just coming in and out of my subconscious”.
Several years later Radiohead came together with Hans Zimmer (the original composer of the tv show) to remix and record a highly orchestral version of the track for the sequel to the acclaimed ‘Blue Planet’ series. The updated re-release was recorded alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra. Thom Yorke stated in a follow-up interview: “Bloom was inspired by the original Blue Planet series so it’s great to be able to come full circle with the song and re-imagine it for this incredible landmark’s sequel.”
What I absolutely love about this version is the technique they utilised with the orchestra, called ‘tidal orchestra’ which is used to create “a whole musical environment that’s built out of a single note”, with each player in the orchestra taking turns playing it creates a large ambient aesthetic that almost sounds like waves which reflects back heavily with the inspiration that Thom Yorke was getting when he first wrote the track years before. You can hear them discussing this technique in the excellent video linked below.
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/radiohead/bloom
Bloom by Radiohead – Songfacts Available at: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/radiohead/bloom (Accessed: 10 November 2023).