Radiohead and legendary film composer Hans Zimmer have teamed up to score the soundtrack for the BBC’s natural history series Blue Planet II. The collaboration, which they call “(ocean) bloom,” is a reinvention of Radiohead’s 2011 King Of Limbs “Bloom.” Today, the track reveals itself in a five-minute prequel to the Blue Planet II series. The track, featuring new vocals by Thom Yorke, was inspired by the sounds of the sea, and recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Radiohead’s original “‘Bloom’ was inspired by the original Blue Planet series so it’s great to be able to come full circle with the song and reimagine it for this incredible landmark’s sequel,” explains Yorke in a recent press release.
“It sort of seeped into my subconscious. I found myself dreaming of these creatures quite a lot,” Yorke explained in a BBC interview. “When we came to do all those weird recordings for The King of Limbs, it must have been in there. It started with Colin [Greenwood’s] bassline and ‘Open your mouth wide.'”
Zimmer, who composed the scores for The Lion King, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, and so many more added, “In a funny way, I was trying to be respectful and not ruin the song, if you know what I mean. If somebody hands you somebody else’s work, there’s responsibility and respect that comes with it.”
James Honeyborne, executive producer of the documentary, said the collaboration is “an incredibly powerful companion to the scenes we’ve spent [four] years capturing.” The new series will once-again feature Sir David Attenborough as the narrator, and will include footage of newly discovered and never-before filmed creatures, including a new species of crab with a hairy chest – “nicknamed the ‘Hoff crab'” after Baywatch star David Hasselhoff.
You can listen to the full, uninterrupted track here at the 51:22 mark. You should also watch Hans Zimmer and Thom Yorke’s “(ocean) bloom” in the new prequel to Blue Planet II below: