Kid A Mnesia

Some albums reveal themselves immediately. Kid A seems to reveal more of itself each time you return.

A favorite of ours since its release in 2000, Kid A found Radiohead abandoning much of the language that had made them one of the world’s biggest rock bands in favor of electronics, fractured rhythms, strange instrumentation and abstraction. The result still sounds remarkably difficult to place—a record suspended somewhere between the human and the technological, melancholy and possibility.

There is sadness here, certainly, but deeper listening continually opens other doors. How to Disappear Completely can dissolve the world around you; Optimistic invites reflection; the strange beauty of Motion Picture Soundtrack heightens our appreciation for what music can be; and the restless energy of Idioteque awakens a hunger to make something ourselves.

We’ve returned to Kid A for more than twenty-five years, and its complexity continues to reward our curiosity. Perhaps that is its greatest achievement: however familiar it becomes, there always seems to be something left to discover.