Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood composes film score

Radiohead Multi-Instrumentalist Composes Score to Award-Winning British Documentary

(New York, NY) -- Radiohead multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood's score for award-winning British documentary Bodysong will be released in the U.S. Feb. 24, 2004.

Toward the end of 2002, filmmaker Simon Pummell approached Greenwood to provide the score for his ambitious documentary about the experience of being human. Greenwood, taking advantage of some time off from Radiohead, began to write and record the new material with Radiohead engineer Graeme Stewart at the band's Oxford studio over six months.

Greenwood's score takes the place of narration in the dialogue-free film, which pieces together footage from various film libraries around the world spanning the past 100 years. What results is a fascinating collage of images that create a panoramic view of the experience of being human, from birth until death. Bodysong recently won a BIFA (British Independent Film Award) for best British documentary feature.

The score is a multi-layered collection of music—acoustic and electronic—that features contributing musicians including the Emperor String Quartet, a jazz quartet led by fusion pioneer Gerard Presencer and Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood.

On Bodysong, Greenwood is given full reign to explore his most experimental leanings, fusing together a suite of instrumental vignettes which draw inspiration from the further reaches of avant-garde—musique-concrete, minimalism and modern jazz among them.

The score opens with the fluttering strings and somber piano chords of "moon trills," with swelling violins and twinkling bits of percussion setting the meditative mood. Like some of Radiohead's recent work, the Bodysong score is nearly guitar-free, which can be heard on only two of its thirteen tracks. But Greenwood delves even further from his rock roots, be it the shimmering chords and found noises of "moon mall," the polyrhythmic percussion torrent of "convergence," the creaky strings and backward beats of "trench" or the frenzied free jazz of "splitter."

The film will open in the U.K. Dec. 5. Plans are currently being made for the film's U.S. release. For more information visit www.bodysong.com.

Jonny Greenwood's Bodysong - Track Listing

1. moon trills

2. moon mall

3. trench

4. iron swallow

5. clockwork tin soldiers

6. convergence

7. nudnik headache

8. peartree

9. splitter

10. bode radio/glass light/broken hearts