Watch: New Radiohead Short Recalls 'Haunted' Recording of OK Computer
Radiohead has released a new short, and it's as weird as you would expect it to be.
To commemorate the 20th-anniversary re-release of 1997’s OK Computer, Radiohead has unveiled a new short film starring a fictional character, Chieftan Mews.
"Hello, my name’s Chieftan Mews," he says. "I'm unboxing."
Mews proceeds to open the album's new edition as "Climbing on the Walls" plays in the background. Producer Nigel Godrich created the character, a digital composite originally used in The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time, a collection of 24 short films Radiohead released in 2004.
The video's weirdness should not come as a surprise. In speaking about OK Computer, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke recently told Team Rock that "he’d been 'haunted' during recording sessions for the record–and reported the experience of looking back at his 1997 notebooks was 'really, really mental.'"
Radiohead is well known for collaborating with visual artists and filmmakers. Last year, the released a series of artist-created video vignettes (including one by British filmmaker Grant Gee) inspired by their album A Moon Shaped Pool. Recently, Polish DIY filmmaker Michal Marczak shot a music video for a previously unreleased track from the album called "Promise."
