Song · A Moon Shaped Pool era (2015–21)
Ill Wind
A bossa nova rhythm and a wall of icy synthesisers, cut from A Moon Shaped Pool and released beside it.
A Moon Shaped Pool (special edition)album- 2016released
- 4:16length
2008–2016
the north wind
It goes back to around 2008 under the title “The North Wind”, and was finished during the A Moon Shaped Pool sessions. What came out is a bossa nova pulse under Yorke's falsetto, with words advising detachment: stay cold, feel nothing, and you will not call up an ill wind. Critics kept hearing “Knives Out” in the rhythm.
Halfway through, the synthesisers arrive.
More layers arrive, fluty sounds and buzzy ones, swallowing the song before prettily fading out. What seemed like a sanctuary was a trap.
jon pareles · the new york times, 11 january 2019
NME thought the synths “are so effective precisely because they sound so alien. As they tumble over each other in the song's outro, they sound like freaky dismissal music from a church service in outer space”, and then argued that the band were right to leave it off the album, because everything it does is done elsewhere on the record.
2016–19
released twice
It came out on the deluxe edition of A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016, went to streaming services on its own in January 2019, where it reached eight on Billboard's Alternative Digital Songs chart and 24 on Hot Rock Songs, and turned up again on Kid A Mnesia in 2021.
the video
The recording.· Legendas Urbanaswatch on youtube →
sources6
- Daniel Kreps, “Hear Radiohead's icy Moon Shaped bonus cut ‘Ill Wind’”, Rolling Stone, 30 September 2016.
- Larry Bartleet, review, NME, 30 September 2016.
- Jon Pareles, “The playlist”, The New York Times, 11 January 2019.
- Noah Yoo, Pitchfork, 11 January 2019.
- Peter Helman, Stereogum, 29 September 2016.
- “New Radiohead song ‘Ill Wind’ appears online”, DIY, 30 September 2016.