Toronto Artists Doing Well In Radiohead Remix And Video Competitions

As Radiohead's "Nude" remix contest attracts more and more attention, it's receiving submissions from some prominent Toronto artists.

Toronto musician Todor Kobakov's string quartet remix currently ranks 31st out of about 1,600 submissions. Kobakov's name may not be as recognizable as fellow Torontonians Holy Fuck, who lead the competition with nearly 8,000 votes, but he's a member of Major Maker and did the string arrangements for Stars' Set Yourself On Fire and Metric frontwoman Emily Haines' Knives Don't Have Your Back. Kobakov also plays keyboards for Haines' band The Soft Skeleton and Thom D'arcy's Small Sins.

Kobakov's "Nude" remix uses Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke's voice and replaces the instrumentation with an original arrangement performed by Toronto's Tokai String Quartet.

Another "Nude" remix submitted recently by Toronto band Do Make Say Think's Ohad Benchetrit, Justin Small and Charles Spearin (Benchetrit and Spearin are also members of Broken Social Scene) has received more than 200 votes.

Radiohead are also holding a contest that invites people to submit videos for songs from In Rainbows. Toronto's Sam Chou is in the top 10 with an animated video for "Faust Arp" that depicts a guy getting bullied in a notebook.

There are nine days left to submit entries for the video contest, which is being judged by Radiohead. The winner will be announced on June 30.