MUSIC: LOST IN SPACE

The British rock band Radiohead's futuristic new album OK Computer (Capitol) is a bit like the troubled Russian space station Mir--it's a cool place to visit, but if you stay too long, things could start breaking down. The album's sound is refreshingly unique: long, meandering, melodic passages that take their own sweet time to work themselves out; jangling, spacey guitar work--all of it threaded together by singer Thom Yorke's yearning tenor, hitting and holding notes with almost operatic emotion. The lyrics display an X-Files-ish romanticism: one song, Subterranean Homesick Alien, is about a man who longs to be abducted by UFOs.