James Houston plays Radiohead's “Nude” on a ZX Spectrum and a printer

James Houston's version of “Nude”, played entirely on obsolete computer hardware, was on NPR's morning programme The Bryant Park Project today, a month after Colin Greenwood posted it on Dead Air Space, the band's blog.

Check out this brilliant remix of Nude - Jonny and I had a spectrum flashback moment

Colin Greenwood⁴

Houston is 21, comes from North Lanarkshire and studies at Glasgow School of Art. He made the film in answer to the band's invitation to remix the song, which opened on 1 April when the separate parts of “Nude” went on sale through iTunes. A Sinclair ZX Spectrum plays rhythm and lead guitar. An Epson LX-81 dot matrix printer is the drummer and an HP Scanjet 3c scanner plays bass, while an array of hard drives, wired up as a set of bad speakers, carries the vocals and effects.

I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.

James Houston²

He called the film “Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)”, an old alternative title for “Nude” taken from its words, and put it on Vimeo on 2 June. It runs just under four minutes. The piece was on show in the school's visual communication department until 21 June, and by then, Drowned In Sound reported, Houston was weighing several job offers. The sounds were in the machines already, he told NPR.

It was a matter of prodding and poking to try to get good music out of it

James Houston¹