Picture Thom Yorke’s existential dread filtered through the cheerful bloops of a Mario Kart loading screen. That’s the premise behind ‘OK Nintendo 64’, a full reimagining of Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ built entirely from N64 soundfonts, created by on4word and now live on YouTube. Every track on the seminal 1997 record gets rebuilt using the instrument banks of classic Nintendo 64 games, so “Airbag” runs on Super Mario 64, “Paranoid Android” rides the Mario Kart 64 engine, and “Exit Music (For a Film)” gets the Banjo-Kazooie treatment. The mashup works far better than it has any right to, turning melancholy art-rock into something playful and strangely moving. The full project is available free, or pay what you want, at on4word’s Bandcamp, with bonus material and uncompressed audio included.


