Electronica: Brian Eno's Curiosities: Volume I

Deliberate or not, Brian Eno’s track “My Lonely Organ” begins with the psalm tones commonly used for liturgical chanting in Christian congregations. This piece could also then be called “Variations on a Psalm Tone.”

“My Lonely Organ” appears on the album, Curiosities: Volume I, Eno’s album which is an assemblage of what compiler Marlon Weyeneth calls “unreleased, unrealistic, and unfinished music.” The tracks are at times ambient noise, soundscapes, electronica, new jazz, world beat, or here, on “My Lonely Organ,” haunting melodies.

The most common reaction I hear from people about psalm intonation is that it is dry, boring, dirge-like, and lacking spontaneity. Perhaps. However, there is a growing number of postmoderns who are craving the traditional, the mysterious, the ritual, the ethereal in their worship of Christ. Those who seek psalm chants and other liturgical rites dating back to the Medieval period or even to the first century Church find that these forms of worship are actually opening up their understanding of what it means to commune with God, to be in a relationship with Him, to come before His presence for prayer, worship, and receiving of His Word.

If inspired by psalm tones (VII E: Mixolydian, to be exact), Eno’s “My Lonely Organ” does exactly what a postmodern does in their own heart when hearing the intonation. Eno takes the simple tones and draws out the longer melody therein. Yes, psalm tones are necessarily repetitious, a repeated phrase used throughout the psalm, only broken up if there is an antiphon, a separate verse using a melody of its own to act like a chorus. Yet, in that repetition, there lies a rising song to the Lord, one that might be partly hidden, one that is held back, one that is a foretaste of the songs to come in the praises in the heavenly throne room of God the Father.

While training for the ministry at Concordia Seminary—St. Louis, I often attended Evening Worship on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10:00 PM. Tuesdays we would follow the order of worship of Evening Prayer. Following the tradition of monasteries which developed the daily offices—services designed for different parts of the day, Evening Prayer is an office meant for the evening hours. Thursdays we would follow Compline, an office meant for the dark of night before retiring for sleep.

Compline was my favorite. To walk in to the Chapel of Saints Timothy and Titus, with minimal lighting, meditate on God’s Word in pre-service silence, and then to join the other voices in acappella worship. I left those services with the chants firmly in my mind, with the psalm tone as a repeating melody in my head. As I would walk home in the dark, I would take that psalm tone and let it follow its natural course of song. Like Eno, I had my own “Variations on a Psalm Tone” playing in my head. Following that melody raised my awareness of the beauty of the chant, the wondrous possibilities found in one repeated line of notes. And indeed, this is how the Psalms are themselves as God’s Word—they point forward to Jesus Christ, opening up the possibility of a great melody of salvation through His death and resurrection.

Thanks to Brian Eno for “My Lonely Organ,” for opening up those possibilities of a psalm tone. Thanks to Opal Music and Enoshop for their help in getting this album to me.