I find it difficult now to recall there was a time when I was rather indifferent towards Radiohead. Although I liked “Creep”, I did not own corresponding album Pablo Honey until finding a used CD for very little money years later, thereby obtaining a dirt cheap “Creep”. The tracks from The Bends that were on the radio at the time did not resonate with me, but yet another cheap disc made me appreciate those better through some of the deeper cuts. Both OK Computer and Kid A kept me at arm’s length, if only because of the massive accolades heaped upon those by a worshipful fan base.

It wasn’t until Kid A’s companion album, Amnesiac, was released in 2001 that I started to really take notice. Here was a deeply strange collection, seemingly released to puzzle the massive and cool the fervor that had been building over the years. It somehow took an album which alienated some of its base to draw me into the fold. I’m a pervert, I know.

In general, companion albums intrigue me. I’m not so interested in long albums released simultaneously as two separate entities, as has been done by Guns ‘n’ Roses and Bruce Springsteen. I mean those odd sets which distinguish themselves from a recent release in some way. Although they are rarely a rewarding listening experience, I like how Nine Inch Nails tend to release a remix album eventually of the most recent full-length. My favorite Robyn Hitchcock releases are his major label Jewels for Sophia and its released, mirror universe album A Star for Bram. They even have similar artwork, as these things should

Kid A and Amnesiac have rather different covers, but they both clearly occupy the same world. Booklets hidden under the disc tray of some copies of the former have lyrics and accompanying illustrations for tracks from both titles. It came as no surprise to me to eventually learn they were intended for release as one double album, what with the credits saying the latter was “made on location at the same time as Kid A“. Small wonder such a description brings to my the movies when both releases are very cinematic, and the first one actually ends with the song “Motion Picture Soundtrack”. A deluxe reissue combined the two with previously unheard content into a collection titled Kid A Mnesia.

Still, these are significantly different sets, with Kid A being more consistent in tone, largely as if it is one continuous piece broken into movements. Amnesiac has no such aspirations, a hodge-podge of tracks that belong together only being each is so morose and individualistic. It is like a gathering of introverts–all the kids (presumably B and beyond, and possibly into the Greek alphabet) which can’t play well with others.

Talk about combativeness: exhibit A (Kid A?) for me is “You and Whose Army?”, a track I first heard on one of those Q magazine year-end CD compilations. I was immediately struck by how it sounded like it was recorded using audio equipment from the 1940’s. The tone is very warm, yet something about that keeps the listener at a distance. It has an ethereal quality, like something we have received from a place beyond the realm of the corporeal and the living.

I listened to it enough that I sought out the CD, and I just happened upon a used copy of the limited edition, which is a small, cloth-cover, hardbound book. Specifically, it is a former, and future, library book, completely with old-school check-out card in a sleeve inside the cover. That card has then-future dates up to 2012 on it, which I found enjoyable unnerving at the time. Of course, all the dates on it are now in the past, making this feel like a secret to be enjoyable only by those of us familiar with those of us who had been familiar with this edition before those dates elapsed. Another interesting touch is the book claiming it is “to be hidden” and that Nosuch Library “cannot be held responsible for misuse”.

Regardless of the format, this is an interesting set of songs. Opener “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”, a minimalist track with a title that, in and of itself, appeared to have been slightly crushed. Whereas Kid A opener “Everything In Its Right Place” is one of the most memorable pieces on that album, the corresponding track on Amnesiac is intentional more slight and it becomes a bit difficult to recall exactly what it sounded like after it finishes.

Part of that is because the equally sparse, yet elegiacally gorgeous “Pyramid Song” follows. Much of it is little more than piano, vocals and effects, with Thom Yorke singing from seemingly beyond the grave, where he jumps into a river and swims with a black-eyed angel. It is only from the title, I assume this track is intended to channel the ancient Egyptian obsession with death and the titular monuments they created, which were full of things for a ruler to take with them into the afterlife. It is a truly haunting piece.

The third track shifts gears unexpected, as the electronic clatter of “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” pummels the listener with relentless percussive sounds. It is a fascination construct, but one I found myself unable to appreciate until a great many listens.

Downshifting again is the fourth song, “You and Whose Army?”, before we get to the most likely singles from the set: “I Might Be Wrong” and “Knives Out”. Neither likely would have been deemed single material before Kid A, and that album did not have singles pulled from it. Instead, Amnesiac did that duty, with EPs released for these tracks, as well as “Pyramid Song”. The b-sides, as usual, are fascinating stuff, though those who derided this album as already being tossed-off material from Kid A likely thought non-album tracks from this were merely b-sides to b-sides, in a way. I remember the same complaint leveled at the singles from OMD’s Dazzle Ships though, as much as I love that album, that would be a more legitimate complaint, as two tracks on that had already been b-sides previously.

The next track is still divisive today, as Kid A‘s “Morning Bell” get a reprise here as “Morning Bell/Amnesiac”. The former is my favorite song in the group’s catalog, though I like this weird twin nearly as much. Whereas the earlier version was dark electronica, the latter has an arrangement which brings to my mind both Pet Sounds and art nouveau imagery. The former is presumably because of the chiming keys and bells. As for the latter, I have no idea and that’s just how my brain works (or doesn’t).

“Dollars and Cents” follows, the song that should have been, in a just world, the fourth single from this set. Balancing that out, we then have two of the most unusual tracks on even this, their weirdest album. “Hunting Bears” is a two-minute guitar instrumental, and even I am at a loss as to its inclusion, except it is short and anything related to the band and bears brings to mind the Radiohead Bear logo and associated imagery. This is followed by “Like a Spinning Plates”, a beautiful tune, even if it is backwards. Live versions successfully translate this into a piano ballad, which serves the piece better, if I’m being completely honest.

Everything wraps up with “Life In a Glasshouse”. Naturally, the word glasshouse brings to mind stones and widely held belief residents of them should not throw stones. The arrangement is surprisingly cozy, and full of warm horns. It is an unexpected ending to a succession of odd tracks, yet it feels like the perfect conclusion. It was also used in the movie Children of Men, a film which feels like it is from the same world as Amnesiac. I doubt one could play the album alongside the movie and get the kinds of correlations some people get from playing Dark Side of the Moon as they watch The Wizard of Oz, but it wouldn’t surprise me too much if there were.

Although Amnesiac took a while to grow on me, I like how it still keeps me at some distance regardless of the number of times I play it. It is difficult for an album to maintain any mystery after enough spins, yet this one remains a friend with whom I may talk occasionally, but who reserves the right to keep some of their secrets to themselves. Rarely has aloofness held so much allure.