Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District

Inspired early on by the experimental pieces of Krzysztof Penderecki, Radiohead's guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood has pursued the idea of shaping orchestral sounds in enexpected ways to produce startling and innovative works. Just as Penderecki wrote for conventional instruments and turned dense bands of microtonal dissonances and extended techniques into the agonized cries of Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and the pulsating roars and shrieks of Polymorphia, Greenwood achieves comparable effects in his multilayered and highly varied orchestral music. The massed harmonies and swooping glissandi of Popcorn Superhet Receiver owe a considerable debt to Threnody, which Greenwood would gladly admit; because the title 48 Responses to Polymorphia openly acknowledges the connection to that work, it is easy to identify Greenwood's raw materials and how he brilliantly reworks them to his purposes. This 2012 release from Nonesuch consists of recordings made with the Aukso Orchestra in Kraków, Poland, with Penderecki conducting his own works and Marek Mos conducting Greenwood's compositions.

Bassist Nick Greenwood is best-known today for his fiery work with Arthur Brown in his own 1968-69 heyday. Moving on, in 1972, Greenwood chose to record a solo album, and to that end brought together a crack band of sessionmen. Even for its time the resulting Cold Cuts set was way out there, a mighty slab of psychedelia-laced prog rock that soared into musical recesses seldom explored. Besides showcasing Greenwood's superb bass skills, fans are also surprisingly treated to his vocals – surprising, because Greenwood was not previously known as a singer. He acquits himself quite spectacularly here, his delivery as powerful on the rockier numbers as it is nuanced and introspective on the proggier songs.