As great as OK Computer is, can we all agree that this album cover is TERRIBLE?
  • As great as OK Computer is, can we all agree that this album cover is TERRIBLE?

Hot on the heels of topping Pitchfork's controversial People's List, Radiohead's 1997 classic—yes, it really is a classic—album OK Computer is going to be completely reinvented right here in Portland.

The Portland Cello Project are performing the album in full, using their patented cello technology to reinterpret Radiohead's dystopian opus. It wasn't something that PCP artistic director Douglas Jenkins ever wanted to do; he once said that the Cello Project would never tackle a Radiohead song because the original arrangements were perfect as is.

But you know what they say: we hope that you choke! Wait, what? Who says that? That is a really mean thing to say.

Perhaps only choking a tiny bit on those words, Portland Cello Project will perform OK Computer in full, collaborating with Chicago's City of Tomorrow wind quintet, plus an eight-man choir directed by Stephen Marc Beaudoin. That's cellos AND winds AND singing men, all "Electioneering" to bring you "Lucky" music listeners an inventive program that will surely be not full of "No Surprises."

Okay, I will stop trying to cram in OK Computer references.

It happens at the Aladdin Theater on Saturday, September 22, and the ensembles will perform classical pieces interspersed with the Radiohead. Adam Shearer will make a guest appearance on "Exit Music (For a Film)." Sounds pretty cool. It surely won't be a "Let Down*."

*I'm sorry.