Idiotque is the 8th track off of Radiohead’s 4th studio album ‘Kid A’. The song is based around a synthesizer sample which Jonny Greenwood sourced from Paul Lansky’s 1973 piece ‘Milde Und Liese’ (Mild And Easy). Through the use of audio processing, Greenwood re-pitched the chords down a semitone from the original. This is set to a mechanised, syncopated percussion groove produced by Greenwood using an Analogue System Modular RS 8000.
Paul Lansky was an innovator and pioneer of computer synthesis (later abandoning the genre around 2004). The title of the piece is related to a chord often know as the ‘Tristan chord’ because of its similarities to the Richard Wagner opera ‘Tristan Und Isolde’. Lansky had ‘borrowed’ the sequence himself, repurposing it from the opening bars of Wagner’s work. Use of another sample from the same compilation required Greenwood to seek clearance from American composer Arthur Krieger due to use of samples from Krieger’s ‘Short Piece’. This approach was treated similarly to Creep, adding an extended compositional credit to the track. Lansky has been particularly complimentary towards Radiohead’s use of his work.
The lyrics are constructed using David Byrne’s cut-up method and features familiar phrases “Women and children first”, Take the money and run”, and pop culture references from the time. The title Idioteque is a play on ‘idiotic’ and refers to someone whose obsessed with technology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thekingofgear (2014) The King of Gear ;, Tumblr. Available at: https://thekingofgear.com/post/106540893930/i-was-trying-to-cover-idioteque-as-close-as
Allen, W. (2021). Radiohead. every album, every song.
Hyden, S. (2020). This isn’t Happening. Radiohead’s Kid A and the beginning of the 21st century.