A change of pace

For the past few weeks, I've mostly been listening to Riot Grrl and 80s/90s indie pop (Pale Saints and Heavenly mostly), but the next album on my alphabetical trawl through my hard drive is a compilation of Benedictine monks singing Gregorian chants.

Now, I'm ambiguous about religious music as it is: it can be utterly sublime, but it's written for the glorification of an imaginary being which has legitimised all sorts of appalling behaviour (and some good things, to be fair). I'm also ambiguous about Benedictine monks: I spent some of my school life in the tender care of this lot (as well as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy - who were heavily armed and not inclined to mercy, I can tell you) and they were, by and large, drunks, mental and physical bullies and very much not what you'd call holy. I just can't imagine the ones I knew producing this kind of contemplative music. I also supposedly sang this stuff in the school choir - nobody worked out that I simply mouthed the words for 2 years because choir practice was better than the homework sessions which were the alternative.

So this is a beautiful album, one which, I suppose, can be treated by atheists as simply music - being in Latin helps most people, but I can follow enough to get annoyed - but it holds all sorts of other associations for me.