[Interview] NY Times (June 12th, 2013)

[Vostok]

Mike and Marcus are sitting in their farmhouse studio, listening to a truly beautiful piece of music. It has a genuinely etherial quality. It's like nothing that has ever been on earth before. If God listens to music, it would be this.

"What a quality track" says Marcus.

"Yeah" says Mike. "I've always loved Audiotrack 14393. Y'know, maybe we should think about putting some of this music out."

"Haven't you been reading the news?" Marcus says grimly. "Terrorist atrocities, conflict in the middle east, pollution all over the place, scarring our beautiful earth! You think humanity deserves to hear this? They're nothing but a bunch of hairless apes."

"You're right Marcus" says Mike. "I don't know what I was thinking. Let's never release the thousands of incredible tracks we have. Not until human beings can learn to live in peace, and in harmony with nature."

"Yeah" says Marcus. "We'll leave them to our children, and our children's children. They'll know when the time is right."

"That reminds me" says Mike. "Warp have been on the phone again. They are pestering us about a new album."

"Again?" Marcus says, "It's only been eight fucking years. We should just keep them hanging on for longer. Ah fuck it, just send them 17 tracks from the "meh" pile. Everyone will think it's amazing. After all, they've never heard the real gold."

"And they never will"

"I'll drink to that Mike, I'll drink to that."

what if they released a boxset of 'old tunes'
and it was just tracks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsBvIkk7tto

[lumpenprol]

Mike and Marcus are sitting in their farmhouse studio, listening to a truly beautiful piece of music. It has a genuinely etherial quality. It's like nothing that has ever been on earth before. If God listens to music, it would be this.

"What a quality track" says Marcus.

"Yeah" says Mike. "I've always loved Audiotrack 14393. Y'know, maybe we should think about putting some of this music out."

"Haven't you been reading the news?" Marcus says grimly. "Terrorist atrocities, conflict in the middle east, pollution all over the place, scarring our beautiful earth! You think humanity deserves to hear this? They're nothing but a bunch of hairless apes."

"You're right Marcus" says Mike. "I don't know what I was thinking. Let's never release the thousands of incredible tracks we have. Not until human beings can learn to live in peace, and in harmony with nature."

"Yeah" says Marcus. "We'll leave them to our children, and our children's children. They'll know when the time is right."

"That reminds me" says Mike. "Warp have been on the phone again. They are pestering us about a new album."

"Again?" Marcus says, "It's only been eight fucking years. We should just keep them hanging on for longer. Ah fuck it, just send them 17 tracks from the "meh" pile. Everyone will think it's amazing. After all, they've never heard the real gold."

"And they never will"

"I'll drink to that Mike, I'll drink to that."

lol, nice one

[machinea]

That interview was great. Such a pleasure to log on and see the link and read some of those questions.

[Betacord]

A couple of years ago we decided to start collating and cataloging all our early recordings, just for ourselves really, to know that we could tidy it all up and hand it on to our kids someday.

So, their children will have the right to the music?

They should make an album based on that idea...

[Solynth]

what if they released a boxset of 'old tunes'
and it was just tracks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsBvIkk7tto

I'd buy it in a second.

[Twoist]

Just catching up with the last 48 hours. What a fantastic interview. Probably the best insight into their techniques yet. Seems to answer some of the questions I've had going around my head since the TH release.

[ZosoCon]

A couple of years ago we decided to start collating and cataloging all our early recordings,

At this point I was grinning ear to ear

just for ourselves really, to know that we could tidy it all up and hand it on to our kids someday, but there are literally thousands of tracks going way back into the ’80s.

Grin instantly disappeared. Oh well, still cool though.

Same here, dude

Yeah this bit was painful to read. I understand they want to be private on certain things, but hope we'll get to hear some of it, someday.

[rubot]

haha, they release a new album after 8 years, and people just want them to release older stuff.

anyway, great interview.

[Saakki]

Jeez what a boctease..thousands, hundreds, case full of tapes...never get to hear them..just damn. But the interview was great. Nice insight and brothers talking quite openly about their techniques. Unlucky NY times did not ask about the future. But I kinda sense that there is more to come. They expanded their studio etc..!

[23degreesdream]

As much as i'd usually err on the side of pessimism this did actually fill me with a little hope.

They've confirmed they've been curating early material (which backs up MDG's assertions) and despite the fact that the main reason is personal, for completeness and to have a legacy for their kids so all that hard work isn't lost - it does seem alot of effort to go to just to have all that material just sitting around.

I believe they must have done that with the idea of packaging it up for a concatonated anthology for release at some point in the future. I'd highly doubt we'd get everything, or anywhere near it, but a collection reflective of the evolution of their sound that represents them better than Old Tunes rips? I can see that happening definitely, given their pride in their work and perfectionism.

[rubot]

Love this quote by the way:

I think the digital world suffers from being just so literal, so deliberate and sober. As with digital photography, people have gotten used to applying simulated filters onto their pictures just to inject a bit of romance into the thing, because the raw pictures are so flat. But in the analog realm these beautiful things just happen by themselves without your conscious effort. You could say the wobbles and flutters in our music are equivalent to something like weeds overgrowing an old building. Nobody puts the weeds there, but nature comes along and makes the scene very tragic and beautiful.

[TaoTapeTao]

I think in both interviews the bros are silently confirming that even despite 7-8 year breaks, they're nowhere near done making music. I think boc are going to be putting out albums for a decent amount of time..

[MindElevation]

Love this quote by the way:

I think the digital world suffers from being just so literal, so deliberate and sober. As with digital photography, people have gotten used to applying simulated filters onto their pictures just to inject a bit of romance into the thing, because the raw pictures are so flat. But in the analog realm these beautiful things just happen by themselves without your conscious effort. You could say the wobbles and flutters in our music are equivalent to something like weeds overgrowing an old building. Nobody puts the weeds there, but nature comes along and makes the scene very tragic and beautiful.

Yeah that is a really great quote.

[MindElevation]

I think in both interviews the bros are silently confirming that even despite 7-8 year breaks, they're nowhere near done making music. I think boc are going to be putting out albums for a decent amount of time..

Agreed!

[flim]

Sweet interview, glad to see their work ethic isn't gone - Its just a shame they are so strict on their own quality control on releasing stuff! (which is fair enough) I mean, don't they realise we will all be quite happy to listen to them fart in a bath, compress, distort and tape warp it up to feck

Seriously tho I would give anything to hear all of those other tracks, I think as a fan its like wanting to see the sketches and work processes leading up to an artists masterpiece.

[depechedaz]

Q. The album is just over an hour long. Can you estimate how much was recorded? What’s on the cutting room floor?

EOIN Hundreds of tracks. But that’s pretty normal for us. During the time we were recording this record there were lots of finished tracks that didn’t quite fit the plan we had for it, so yeah, a few albums’ worth.

Please.....not another 7 years, just release the "few albums worth" of stuff!

If they knew they were dead set on the theme (they knew the title in 2006, apparently) maybe they will drop a little of their obsession with thematic cohesiveness and put out some of this material in a couple years...

Who am I kidding, we'll never hear any of it!

Defeatist! (probably right though!)

[BunnyRabbit]

I know you can go to a ridiculous degree of analysis on these statements but, hey, this is Twoism right?

Saying "just for ourselves, really" is not as bad as not even mentioning the facts of the matter at all or adding 'but they'll never see the light of day'. It's not that they said 'only for ourselves and our family'. There's more than a hint of tease about that sentence construction. It's almost setting up for a follow-up line like '..but then we realised we could release it...'. That 'really' at the end is a conversational tick. It literally means 'truly', 'actually' or 'in fact' but it's also a kind of tell about deeper intentions of thoughts. The addition of 'really' is common in English and is conversational so goes unnoticed most of the time. 'I don't know, really' is quite different to 'I really don't know' though. The first is an open statement the second is closed.

The thing about their kids is interesting. You would have thought that there was no rush to do this now. It's more like something you do later on when you've given up doing new stuff. I would have thought. Then again, maybe they see it as insurance. If they get their back catalogue in order now their families are provided for if the worst happens.

It's very much like the live teaser in the way they don't completely confirm or deny it. They acknowledge the possibility but they leave it open to being explained away as nothing to get excited about. They must know that the fans want more material from them and mention this stuff in part to explain the process but I can't help sensing some ongoing thought process about sharing their intentions for the future.

[miklatov]

Mike and Marcus are sitting in their farmhouse studio, listening to a truly beautiful piece of music. It has a genuinely etherial quality. It's like nothing that has ever been on earth before. If God listens to music, it would be this.

"What a quality track" says Marcus.

"Yeah" says Mike. "I've always loved Audiotrack 14393. Y'know, maybe we should think about putting some of this music out."

"Haven't you been reading the news?" Marcus says grimly. "Terrorist atrocities, conflict in the middle east, pollution all over the place, scarring our beautiful earth! You think humanity deserves to hear this? They're nothing but a bunch of hairless apes."

"You're right Marcus" says Mike. "I don't know what I was thinking. Let's never release the thousands of incredible tracks we have. Not until human beings can learn to live in peace, and in harmony with nature."

"Yeah" says Marcus. "We'll leave them to our children, and our children's children. They'll know when the time is right."

"That reminds me" says Mike. "Warp have been on the phone again. They are pestering us about a new album."

"Again?" Marcus says, "It's only been eight fucking years. We should just keep them hanging on for longer. Ah fuck it, just send them 17 tracks from the "meh" pile. Everyone will think it's amazing. After all, they've never heard the real gold."

"And they never will"

"I'll drink to that Mike, I'll drink to that."

what if they released a boxset of 'old tunes'
and it was just tracks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsBvIkk7tto

That cracked me up! You know, if that did happen, we'd probably all still sit here trying to dissect it and find a deeper meaning....

[mc10101]

What exactly was was 'edited' out of this interview NY Times ?????? Everyone has their price, whats yours???

[flim]

That cracked me up! You know, if that did happen, we'd probably all still sit here trying to dissect it and find a deeper meaning....

Ha, so true