Michael Fremer

The concert pianist Christopher O’Riley says Radiohead has been “the music in my head,” since he discovered OK Computer back in 1997. Because Radiohead’s music isn’t formally published, O’Riley took it upon himself to create transcriptions so he could play heavily embellished versions of the group’s themes for himself and then as station-break filler for From the Top the public radio show he hosts that spotlights young musicians. He later performed a longer set of Radiohead tunes on NPR’s Performance Todayand the band’s fan base responded positively, which set in motion the process that resulted in this album.

Psychedelic music may have originated as a raw, disorienting art form in the streets of Haight-Ashbury, or in L.A. crash pads, but as with all raw art forms, it was only a matter of time before it got sanitized, commercialized and made non-threatening for middle-brow Top 40 consumption.

Legendary, much sought after and barely in print when first released on the obscure International Artist label, both the original mono and stereo versions of Roky Erickson’s psychedelic scream and surf fest fetch big bucks.