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Hear Radiohead and Hans Zimmer’s “ocean (bloom)” Collaboration for Blue Planet II

GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND - JUNE 23: Thom Yorke of Radiohead performs on day 2 of the Glastonbury Festival 2017 at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 23, 2017 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

Radiohead has released their collaboration with composer Hans Zimmer, which was created for a prequel film to the UK nature series Blue Planet II. “ocean (bloom),” as was previously announced, is a retooling of “Bloom” from the band’s 2011 King of Limbs album. The new song features an orchestration from Zimmer and a new vocal track from Yorke.

Yorke, Zimmer, and Jonny Greenwood also discussed the collaboration on BBC Music 6, immediately after watching the prequel film, featuring David Attenborough, for the first time. The three discussed the process of doing justice to the scale and seriousness of the project without being too “bombastic.” Yorke explained how the first Blue Planet series influenced the original version of “Bloom”:

That was me lying on the sofa trying to go back to sleep when I’ve been up too late with my son—7 o’clock in the morning, when he was small—and it coming in and out of my subconscious….they managed to go so deep that they’d discovered all these creatures we didn’t know about—that whole thing for me, the idea of discovering life that humanity doesn’t know about, is to me one of the most profound concepts.

Watch the prequel film below, with the song used in context, or hear it without visuals and narration here around the 51-minute mark of the radio interview here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05hc2mz/player