Radiohead Is Back—Sort Of: Listen to Rare Track “Ill Wind”

Thom Yorke and Co. share 2016 bonus track from “A Moon Shaped Pool.” 
Radiohead Is Back—Sort Of: Listen to Rare Track “Ill Wind”

Thom Yorke and Co. share 2016 bonus track from “A Moon Shaped Pool.” 

Words: Scott T. Sterling

photo by Greg Williams 

January 11, 2019

Radiohead is back—sort of.

On a new music Friday already packed with notable releases, Thom Yorke and company have shared the song “Ill Wind.” 

It’s not exactly a new track. “Ill Wind” was originally released in 2016 as a CD-only bonus track that came with a special vinyl edition of the album A Moon Shaped Pool. That disc also included “Spectre,” Radiohead’s scrapped James Bond theme originally slated for the 2015 Bond movie of the same name.

“Ill Wind” arrives in the wake of Yorke revealing that he won’t be attending the band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame scheduled for Friday, March 29 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame…we’ve always been very blasé about that stuff,” Yorke told Variety. “So we don’t want to offend anyone. We just think that we just don’t quite understand it. We’ve had it explained to us, so it’s cool. But we don’t really understand it as English people. I think our problem is essentially that every awards ceremony in the UK stinks. We grew up with the Brits, which is like this sort of drunken car crash that you don’t want to get involved with. [Chuckles.] So, yeah, we don’t really know what to make of it.”

Listen to “Ill Wind” below.