RADIOHEAD - KID A Price: €12.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

1997's OK COMPUTER turned the rock world on its ear by bringing visionary neo-prog rock touches to a Britpop format. Consequently, KID A was one of the most anticipated releases of its era. This limited edition comes in a fine, rigid, oversized high-quality glossy paginated format, with artwork by the same hand as the regular edition, and with speculative philosophical jottings heading each page. No secret booklet, though.
On KID A, Thom Yorke's passionate wailing is put through the aural wringer, and the band's previous nimbly orchestrated full-frontal sonic assault is replaced by full-frontal electric piano, to iconoclastic effect. The ambient underpinnings and garbled vocals of "Everything in Its Right Place", and the instrumental "Treefingers", the electronic beats of "Idioteque", and Yorke's processed voice on the title track will come as quite a shock to diehard '70s rockers who spent the late '90s deifying Radiohead as heirs to the Pink Floyd throne. But these touches work brilliantly, while the more organic elements, such as the jazzy horn section on "The National Anthem", and the comparatively conservative arrangement (though there's some unsettlingly atonal orchestration lurking here, too) of "How to Disappear Completely" provide a counterpoint to all this incipient modernism.