Christopher O'Riley's solo-piano Radiohead album is out

True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead, the American pianist's album of Radiohead songs for solo piano, is out on Sony Classical today, 10 June, the day Hail to the Thief reaches American shops. He transcribed and arranged all 15 himself.

Nothing on the record comes from Hail to the Thief, and the title song has only ever been released by Radiohead as the live take on I Might Be Wrong. Two more arrangements went up as free downloads on his website in April: “There There”, weeks before the band's single, and “Good Morning Mr. Magpie”, which Radiohead have played live but never recorded.

O'Riley is 47, a Russell Sherman pupil known for his Stravinsky, Skryabin and Beethoven, with prizes from the Van Cliburn, Leeds, Busoni and Montreal competitions. I don't think I'm 'slumming' it by doing this music², he says.

For about a year and a half O'Riley has been slipping the arrangements into the station breaks of From the Top, the NPR programme for young classical musicians that he hosts, and he tells the Hartford Courant that the listeners wrote in. We would get e-mail saying, 'Who is this Mr. Head, and where do I get more of his beautiful music?'² Sony Classical's interest followed.

He came to Radiohead through OK Computer in 1997, drawn by the harmonies, the counterpoint and an album with no weak tracks. None of their music is published as sheet music, so he worked the songs out by ear for his own pleasure, and by the time it was an obsession he was downloading MP3s of B-sides and rare live tracks. Some of the arrangements are among the hardest things he has ever played; for “Thinking About You” he wrote a repeating figure to stand in for the strummed guitar. He has never spoken to anyone in the band.

Tracklist