Tonight’s musical selection is Tool’s seminal album Lateralus, rearranged according to the Fibonacci Sequence. This version of the track listing, referred to as “the Holy Gift”, is remarkable for the musicality of its dramatic development, telling an allegorical story that somehow speaks to the Soul without ever revealing a plot. Whether you are looking to reconnect with the Creative Unconscious, you are searching for Identity, Sanctity, and Healing in a Spiritually confused World, or both, (for One might be equated with the Other,) you should take the time to avail yourself of this Gift. Warning: Track Four contains explicit lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3qJQLpmfyIiNHcPYGl8bgP3xyM_MVsfw

Note: the album is a source of controversy among Tool fans who resist the notion that an album can be presented in a non-linear format, despite the fact that most surreal narratives and many popular, experimental films do just that. The presence of the Fibonacci Sequence is incontrovertible and explicit throughout the album, in the plainest mathematical and musicological terms, and Tool is not the first group of artists to have employed it. Clearly, progressive rock is not intended for individuals who dismiss intellectual inquiry as “having too much time” or being “crazy”.

As a composer, I can attest* to the sonic superiority of this esoteric arrangement, simply in terms of symphonic development, expressed through dynamic changes, transitions, rhythmic modulation, sound effects, and numerous other devices that are used to establish an album as one unit. These structural techniques also occur within the confines of each song, as though to represent the Whole by some form of fractal metonymy. Considering that Tool is one of the most explicitly occult bands in the World, it is tragic to consider that they are also, next to Led Zeppelin perhaps, the most popular, predisposing them to a great deal of misunderstanding.

May this album, if not its backstory, challenge you to tell a story that perhaps only the few will unriddle, and perhaps not many more will appreciate, though many may dispute with ardour.

[({L.J.)}]

*I should note that the original track listing bothered me for its seemingly droning, drawn-out and meandering quality. By contrast, the Holy Gift feels consistent, Apollonian, and fleeting. I have had similar intuitions about the use of 440 Hertz and 432 Hertz. (Standard versus Pythagorean tuning systems.)