The Secret Life of Pop Music August 15, 2009

Have you ever felt that the familiar sounds you hear all around you, on radios, in commercials, and in the soundtracks of movies, contained a hidden strangeness? Have you ever felt like there was some terrible, secret meaning that has always gone unnoticed precisely because these sounds are so omnipresent?

If so, come to THE SECRET LIFE OF POP MUSIC, and all will be revealed.

First composer-vocalist Alex Temple will perform "The White-Walled Room," a piece that uses trip-hop beats, eerie electric piano chords and electronic noise to evoke the experience of recovering a repressed traumatic memory.

He will then be joined by singer Toby C. Siegel for "Imogene," a song cycle that uses elements of New Wave to tap into the zeitgeist of the early 80s: obsessed with systems and patterns, overrun by technology, alienated, cut off from inner life.

Finally, the Ensemble De Sade's Matt Marks and Mellissa Hughes present the Melly and Mafoo Variety Hour, a project that brings out the latent masochism and desperation in seemingly lightweight pop tunes by setting them in darker, more melancholic styles.

Remember: if you miss it, you may never know the truth.