Move Over Messiaen

Enjoyed this post at Dark Forces on a free performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. I'd been hoping to get to this, but was spooked last minute at thoughts of lines and midtown and so missed an apparently incredible show. Serves me right.

As Tashi was ripping it up at Town Hall, I was likely online watching Radiohead's In Rainbows: From the Basement. Nothing mind-blowing here (actually, much as I love these guys, I'm getting a little sick of these samey "live" broadcasts), but I was intrigued that at the end of the scorching "Myxomatosis," someone from the band (off-camera) says to Jonny Greenwood: "A bit of Wagner going at the end there?" I knew Radiohead were into Messiaen, and Messiaen into Wagner, but I never realized the tails met.

Update: Actually, now that I think of it, this isn't the first time. Paul Lansky's "Mild Und Leise," sampled in Radiohead's "Idioteque," is based on Wagner's famous "Tristan chord" and its inversions. Small world, hey guys?