The Sacred and the Profane

As we enter the first week of September and Autumn gently raises her flaming auburn head, thoughts of season-appropriate music come to mind. Pearl Jam's Ten will always be the soundtrack of going back to school in eleventh grade and lying on rugby fields with friends, wearing cozy sweaters and shorts and twirling crisp, fiery leaves between our fingers. Long before Mazzy Star's Fade Into You became Girl Friday's "Dead John Song," I sang along with Hope Sandoval while folding laundry with a Norwegian friend on his murphy bed in his overheated downtown apartment; we'd study for exams by candlelight, and during breaks had mouthwash gargling contests and ate juicy pineapple out of cans while snow fell silently outside. As for Radiohead's Kid A...

A brief but necessary digression: Over a decade ago, CBC Radio originally aired an in-house produced documentary that won several prestigious international awards, including a Peabody. It was a two-part series on one of my favourite Italian Renaissance composers, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594). Credited with perfecting the smooth sweetness and well-balanced character of choral polyphony as we now know it, Palestrina is considered the greatest influence on Roman Catholic liturgical music. The documentary itself was simply gorgeous; interspersed with his motets throughout, as well as readings from his diaries by an old Italian gentleman, the programme also featured a wonderfully engaging narrator and an engrossing tale. What also irrevocably captured me was the title of the second part of the programme: The Life and Times of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: The Sacred and the Profane. It's always been the juxtaposition of these two seemingly contrary elements of what composes ~ yet enthralls ~ us that has captured my imagination and contemplation. Like coins featuring the twin heads of Janus, it would appear both elements exist in our psychological constitutions where a fine balance must be struck. Or not. If you're interested in hearing these documentaries, click here for the page specific to award-winning CBC radio programming, with free downloads of complete broadcasts. (Huzzah for socialized cultural institutions!) Both parts of this documentary are located at the bottom of the page. And back to our main story...

The first time I heard Kid A was on October 2nd, 2000, the day it was released in North America. Boy somehow fandangled a copy from work and raced home, buzzing with excitement to play it for me. The only wrenching complication about the whole affair was that I was pregnant, had a horrific headache, and was feeling disgustingly irritable. Thus, when this very migraine-unfriendly album was cranked up to eleven for a first listen, it's not beyond the boundaries of speculation I might not've been quite up to the challenge of providing a desirable response. In fact, I believe I squinted in pained apology, turned away, walked into the bedroom, closed the door, and covered my head with a pillow, trying not to puke.

Fast forward to a few weeks after that dreadful autumn night, and the song that taxed my throbbing neurons to maximum capacity then has become the one that fascinates me most: Idioteque.









When it comes to a band like Radiohead, it seems anything released is going to be either entirely deliberate, or accidental to the point of being deliberate. As a Communications prof once remarked about advertising, no detail is accidental or left to chance; every minute element of a campaign is scrutinized for maximum return. As for bands with any sort of integrity, I believe the same principle applies, albeit in a musical dimension and not for the capital. Any "accidents" that might ensue during production that are left there, especially by a band as technically- and musically-savvy as Radiohead, would serve some sort of artistic or theoretical purpose. The lyrical element of this album has been described by the band as being somewhat more haphazard and less considered than previous albums; I'm not quite sure if I believe this, but apparently the verses for this song were thrown into a hat and randomly drawn to form the basis of "Idioteque". Fortunately this time, it's not so much the lyrics that intrigue me, but two specific musical elements.

While the Wikipedia entry of the song technically describes the percussive component of the opening off-beat snares as "bit-crushed... standard for video game snare samples back in Mega Man's era, creating Nintendo-like samples," my sonic impression of the effect is that of a trashcan lid being struck in a dark, drippy alleyway or warehouse to exemplify a hollow, bleak state of disoriented alienation. The snares remain as a constant heartbeat throughout, providing a thematic structure symbolizing perhaps man's darker, less noble nature; the biological aspect, or even the concept of Original Sin, if you will.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, adding to the sometimes base sensibility of human nature represented by the starkly prominent percussion, a recurring musical idiom ~ a leitmotif of a pipe organ theme ~ enters: plaintive, somehow hopeful, always immutable. Like a thousand-year-old cathedral whose supporting buttresses soar into the heavens while prayer candles burn without cessation inside, the steadily repeating organ phrase seems to allude to timeless hope held by seekers ~ and unwavering belief sustained by the faithful ~ through aeons and catastrophes... of any creed.

There is an Italian musical term I learned as a young child that comes to mind every single time I hear Idioteque, even since that very first migrainy listen. It is sostenuto, meaning "to sustain," and describes a recurring theme ~ whether it be a note, rhythm, or even melody ~ used repeatedly in a work. And in this song, both contrasting elements of trashy snare and holy organ idioms exist in sostenuto throughout. They play in tandem, yet act as emphasizing foils for the other to perhaps exaggerate their counterbalancing qualities. They, in fact, make each other sound good, and somehow work very well together.

Like a spiral, seasons come and go and return; each time we are slightly altered, yet hopefully truer to our core selves than ever as wisdom is steadily gained. And with the changing scents in the air, associated music fades in and out of memory, and we are touched again with the sweetness and pain of our own unique tapestries. Life events occur and affect, yet our souls plow on in sostenuto with an ear cocked to the enduring, divine, and comforting. While the storms of hate, greed, dust, and ice sweep through ages of generations throughout the lifespan of the planet, we find peace and solace in the sacred, pure, and omnipresent.

Both aspects of light and dark coexist in struggle; transience fades in and out against the backdrop of permanence, evil fades in the face of good. "Ice age comin'" passes and makes way for the melting heat of the sun, and the frenetic energy of summer sharpens into the crisp clarity of autumn. Darkly hollow snares reverberate through heads and loins while a constant, warm organ hums steadily in our chests; the Profane exists to add colour to the Sacred.

And it is up to us to seek the balance: To sustain the high... and control the low.




(photo credit for the stunning winter forest comes from this wonderful flickr site.)