Sir David Attenborough makes a move into the music world

Sir David Attenborough is taking on a new challenge. Photo / Supplied

He's graced our screens for over 60 years and now much-loved filmmaker and natural historian Sir David Attenborough wants to enter the world of music.

Don't expect to see DJ Dave behind the wheels of steel anytime soon, but the venerated naturalist does want to branch out into the nightclub scene by asking young musos to remix some Balinese folk music he recorded 70 years ago.

Partnering with Songlines magazine and the PRS Foundation, Sir David will judge the competition and whittle entries down to six finalists, which will be put to a public vote.

He first recorded the music while looking for a Komodo dragon, as one does, in his 1954 BBC TV series Zoo Quest and told Songlines that the music has "a quality that you wouldn't be able to replicate today."

"Back in the 1960s, there were still parts of the world where European music had not been heard," the broadcaster said.

"The traditions that had been developed over centuries were still continued with no knowledge of Western styles of music, which since then have enveloped the world."

While it's the broadcaster's first official step into dance music, he is a cult figure for clubbers.

He was sampled by the Gorillaz on their 2012 track Superfast Jellyfish and there is also an Attenborough-themed club night called "David Attenborough Jungle Boogie" where fans wear cut-out masks of the broadcasting legend while cutting shapes to tracks that feature excerpts from his Planet Earth and Blue Planet programmes.