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Rock? Electronica? Who cares! To those with ears to hear, Radiohead’s Kid A is just good music. After creating one of modern rock’s greatest albums with OK Computer, the band altered their sound dramatically for their next release, masterfully incorporating minimalist and apparently nonsense lyrics, a cacophonous din of electronic sounds, occasional eight-piece horn sections (!) and very little guitar to conjure a frighteningly inhuman world of the not-too-distant present. The results are breathtaking, and they stand up as a powerful work from a band at the top of their game, no matter how much the rules of that game had changed.
But if you are reading this, you probably know all of that. On this record, one of the most interesting and talented string quartets around, The Tallywood Strings, pays tribute to the impressive substance of Radiohead’s compositions and puts every string in its right place. Violins shriek and wail, the viola moans, and the cello shudders out a twisted bassline. When it ends, the world may be as inhuman as before, but the talents of Mssrs. Greenwood, Greenwood, Selway, O’Brien, and Yorke will have been proven once again. The String Quartet Tribute to Kid A is the stuff of brilliance.
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