Collapse as the true end of the album?

[thinkdontpray]

i posted about this early on like the night of the stream once a recording of it had leaked out

after reading the guardian interview where they talk about come to dust beind a reprise of RFTD i used that as a "clue" and paired the album off 1,17,2,16,3,15,4,14,5,13,6,12,7,11,8,10,9

its how ive listened to the album since and after i mentioned it here a few people dug it and others found it to be too jarring however i find it to work very well for me.

ending on collaspe seemed odd at first but the more i listened to that order the more it made sense to me...the song ends with a whoosh as if the air is being sucked out of a room after a nuclear blast went off

like i said, it works for me whether or not its "right"

[PlatrixECV]

I just played out SM -> Collapse in my head and it makes a lot of sense. More sense than the actual order actually.

[FernieCanto]

There's another snippet of that same interview that is being ignored in this thread: the idea that "every track has a twin", suggested when they said Come to Dust is a "reprise" of Reach for the Dead. I notice that, though they are not extremely similar in musical terms, they share a theme: reaching for the dead and coming to dust. I think that is the palindrome: a thematic link between equidistant tracks.

I mean, a palindrome doesn't necessarily should be rearranged. If you reverse it, it spells out the same thing. It makes little sense to split a palindrome in half and reverse the latter half: you just get half of a phrase twice. A palindrome is an arc, and it's following that arc that reveals the whole story. That intrigues me much more: perhaps the idea that a collapse is not an ultimate end, but a passage, the exact middle of a circle. BoC spoke of celebrating the idea of a collapse, I imagine, as something inevitable, a necessary phase. I think that's what they mean with the album: you go down the collapse, but come back up somewhere else. That's why I think you don't need to rearrange the tracks. That would be like rearranging the scenes in Memento: the scrambled order is what gives the film its impact. I suspect that's what the brothers were going for h ere, and that's what they wanted to suggest by mentioning the palindrome. Can I get it? I don't know. Let me try:

Gemini / Semena Mertvykh: an uncertain beginning (nuclear bomb) / an uncertain future;
Reach for the Dead / Come to Dust: awareness of mortality;
White Cyclosa / New Seeds: awareness of life (perhaps?);
Jacquard Causeway / Sundown: no idea. Passage of time, maybe?
Telepath / Nothing Is Real: dunno, perhaps the vagueness of reality or something;
Cold Earth / Uritual: feeling of desolation, abandon;
Transmisiones Ferox / Split Your Infinities: no idea what they were getting at here;
Sick Times / Palace Posy: catastrophe, destruction;
Collapse: the passage.

Sketchy, I know, but at least it's something.

[Sun Drugs]

seems to be in the order it is for a reason to me. seems to make sense too.

I read it as the turning point,
Gemini is the beginning, with sick times beforehand, a collapse in the world with apocalypse coming afterwards.

New Seeds is the start of a re-birth

come to dust is interesting. Maybe a settling of whats left of life, nature will re-build with or without people, whether we choose to live along side it or ontop of it again is yet to be seen.

I think its makes for a great concept album, like any great art it challenges you to think

[Heath]

What I find interesting is didn't warp tweet reach for the dead in reverse before the album came out?

[chiefastronaut]

This is probably a little out there but it reminds me of DNA vector plasmids that are used for cloning. A plasmid is the vector for the chromosomal DNA to be cloned. In order to increase chances that the palindromic DNA sequence will be read when transformed plasmids often have twin promoters. This means the DNA can be transcribed from either end. These types of vectors usually have the symbol name pGEM (GEMINI promoters)

http://ecoliwiki.net/colipedia/index.php/pGEM-1

The opening track could be a clue to this. Coincidentally though this has been a common method for genetically modifying foods which people have argued for various reasons could dull the gene pool and have disastrous results on grown food supplies of the earth. (Tomorrow's Harvest) What people should grow and how they should do it is one of the oldest arguments in the world (Biblical old).

Interestingly, even though I think it sounds best simply listening 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9. the above info would not rule out the idea of pairing because due to the base pairing in DNA the palindrome is indeed stacked

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_sequence

Or maybe I'm just a biologist that loves BOC. On another note this album is quickly gaining ground on Geogaddi as my favorite. I think it has a real Saucer, Obscured By Clouds, Meddle era Pink Floyd vibe, which I'm sure has been said.


Sorry I edited this post 5 times because I'm half drunk

[Betacord]

Telepath / Nothing Is Real: dunno, perhaps the vagueness of reality or something;

I got Jesus and the Devil - a bit flimsy, but I'm still keeping it in mind... Alternatively, belief - in a supernatural being beyond, versus belief in an ability within - coming into question during critical times.

[azamarro]

*Ponders whether BoC will invent the first 2d tracklist/audio media*

They did! Or at least those web guys did when they made that website from 2002...

[nick47]

Collapse makes me feel physically sick. It feels like demons are pulling me down to hell with fire raining down all around.

And I LOVE IT

[miklatov]

Some awesome ideas here. I don't think the order of the tracks are supposed to change as such, i think the palendromic structure alludes two roads to the same conclusion.

Gemini --> Collapse

Depicts a disaster of some kind


Semena --> Collapse

Depicts a kind of technological meltdown, the homogeonisation they allude to leading to collapse (Nothing is Real -- alludes to the decay of our sense of self brought about by over-reliance on technology, Split your infinities, Palace Posy, the anagram of apocolypse alluding to a hidden apocolypse?)


Hence i think this "twinning" of tracks is totally right, just in either direction.

I love the idea of the differences in collapse you suggest. Recently I've noticed that when I see the track title Uritual, I read it as Virtual

Uritual
Virtual

Probably just me of course, but it's right next to Nothing is Real, and would fit nicely into your technological meltdown idea.

[23degreesdream]

Some awesome ideas here. I don't think the order of the tracks are supposed to change as such, i think the palendromic structure alludes two roads to the same conclusion.

Gemini --> Collapse

Depicts a disaster of some kind


Semena --> Collapse

Depicts a kind of technological meltdown, the homogeonisation they allude to leading to collapse (Nothing is Real -- alludes to the decay of our sense of self brought about by over-reliance on technology, Split your infinities, Palace Posy, the anagram of apocolypse alluding to a hidden apocolypse?)


Hence i think this "twinning" of tracks is totally right, just in either direction.

I love the idea of the differences in collapse you suggest. Recently I've noticed that when I see the track title Uritual, I read it as Virtual

Uritual
Virtual

Probably just me of course, but it's right next to Nothing is Real, and would fit nicely into your technological meltdown idea.

Thanks For me i find the whirring and droning in Uritual makes me think of some kind of sinister 1984 style distophia - i imagine surveillence cameras and listening devices.

Split your infinities i think also elaborates on the idea of control - Infinity being limitless - meaning i guess a split infinity - whilst impossible mathematically - means give up your dreams of a life without limits?

[aperture]

Maybe it's two stories, one about the dead and one about the survivors, which intersect with the collapse. But I'm still mostly stuck on Gemini as holding the imagery of whatever divided these people. I think twinning is part of the idea, but that one might be more about a split. The divided aerial shots at the end of the RFTD video are pulling me in that direction lately, along with the original myth of Gemini (Castor and Pollux). The living would have a desire to reach across the gulf to the dead, for mourning, for answers, etc. I imagine I can hear the voices of the departed lifting away and out of reach before RFTD. The record is replete with ghosted voices (see slap-back echo), and then what might be a choir of the still living in New Seeds. Then the key change there often accompanies the accelerated passage of time; we pull back and away from these people and their story.

Of course, death reaches for them eventually (come to dust). The palindromic end-points. Look at the back cover and consider the sun as a symbol of mortality. That picture is really powerful to me. The first layer with the tower may be our tomorrow, or the present day of their story. The next, with the looming sun, is their tomorrow. Or another illustration of the gulf between living and dead, and the inevitable bridging of the two from either perspective.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Just think Side A and Side B on a record or cassette tape. Then you'll be fine again

Collapse would be the end of Side A

Cheers

[In_The_Annexe]

collapse is moreso an intermission.

[Fredd-E]

http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10788 -> http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10783