True Love Waits - Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead

1	Everything In It's Right Place
2	Knives Out
3	Black Star
4	Karma Police
5	Let Down
6	Airbag
7	Subterranean Homesick Alien
8	Thinking About You
9	Exit Music (For A Film)
10	You
11	Bulletproof
12	Fake Plastic Trees
13	I Can't
14	True Love Waits
15	Motion Picture Soundtrack

Barnes & Noble

It would be easy to dismiss a disc of Radiohead songs arranged for piano. After all, we've already endured Symphonic Led Zeppelin, The Queen Symphony, and even Strung Out on OK Computer: The String Quartet Tribute to Radiohead. But pianist Christopher O'Riley's transcriptions are different. He really knows and loves Radiohead's songs, yet he's not afraid to adapt the music to the needs of the piano. And what a pianist he is! These are intricate, virtuosic transformations, and he plays them with an abandon that should earn every Radiohead fan's admiration. It's true that he polishes the rough edges off some songs, making "Airbag" sound almost as lush as Rachmaninoff, for example. But O'Riley's intention was not to make literal transcriptions. If you want to hear the originals, listen to Radiohead's albums. What O'Riley offers is a different perspective. Listen, for instance, to the nervous energy of "Thinking About You," with its torrential left-hand figuration, or the quasi-minimalist, trancelike atmosphere of "Let Down." The 15 songs on this disc are drawn from the band's first five albums (up to Amnesiac), providing a welcome variety of mood and style. Rock on, Chris! Andrew Farach-Colton

New York Times

By stripping away the textures of the originals, [O'Riley] illuminates the idiosyncratic chord progressions and melodies that lie at the music's heart.... He preserves both their beauty and their oddly disquieting character. Allan Kozinn

Rolling Stone

[O'Riley] is melodically vivid yet also noisily orchestral.... With unblinking virtuosity, he captures the band's signature contradiction. James Hunter