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Album: Amok (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • Atoms For Peace is an Electro-Rock supergroup comprising Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, drummer Joey Waronker and percussionist Mauro Refosco. Yorke originally formed the group to play live the songs from his laptop-driven 2006 solo album, The Eraser, but they were so good in rehearsal that Yorke arranged for three days of studio recording in Los Angeles. After taking a break in the first part of 2011 whilst Radiohead released and toured their The King of Limbs album, the quintet got together to record their debut album, Amok. This is Atom For Peace's debut single, which was released as a digital download on September 10, 2012.
  • The song originated with a mistake on a sampler in Yorke's studio. He told Rolling Stone: "I hadn't patched it in right. It was giving me a tone that, when I put it with a melody, I was like 'That's nice!' I had that when Nigel and I were doing The Eraser."
  • The band took its name from a song on Eraser, which itself was taken from a 1953 speech by American President Dwight D. Eisenhower. On Atom For Peace's website, under their name, is the Cornish phrase "Nerth Nuclerek? Na Vynnav," which translates as "Nuclear Energy? I Don't Want."
  • The song's music video finds Thom Yorke and contemporary dancer Fukiko Takase engaged in some avant garde moves in an empty auditorium. The clip was conceived and directed by Garth Jennings and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, the same team who were behind Yorke's manic dancing in the visual for Radiohead's "Lotus Flower."

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