Play by Numbers

[TOYOTAセ&#1]

Sure, this may be fake, but can anyone explain why the hell the resolution on the video is so pristine?

I mean, jesus christ! Every single album art I've seen of it has JPEG artifacts, but this one is clear as cut diamonds.

Here's the one on last.fm:



Here's the one from the video:



Plus, that white spot section on the latter is usually the mark that CD booklets make when they have a stapled spine. Plus it has glare from another source of light.

I'm keeping the latter as my new *album art cover if this is *legit.

[paul]

i always chuckle at the empirical guesses whenever this happens. 'this has to be real' or my favorite 'doesn't sound like them at all' ...

as we have recently witnessed with TH if half of those tracks were leaked early without provenance, many of us would have sworn they were fakes. yours truly included. its not that i care - i am way too busy still pouring over TH to even think about anything else - but i do enjoy the enthusiasm in either direction.

on to the point ... so while this may be nothing, the same fellow popped in on my youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUz9MyPM ... ure=gp-n-y) for Come To Dust and left a cryptic comment. i tried to decode it without success. Kilroy The Killjoy came up with "Feb 2014" when he entered the users name. you don't have to go to my youtube if you don't want as this is what he left as a comment for my video:

15DXl9eo15nXqiDXlNeZ157Xmded

just thought i would throw this out there for the fun of it.
could be nothing ... but just in case.

15DXl9eo15nXqiDXlNeZ157Xmded = אחרית הימים = the end of days, the millennium

http://www.base64decode.org/

yeah i got the hebrew too from just entering the comment into google. 'end of days' is fun but i feel its a bit too melodramatic. if you are trying to hide a clue at something it cant be so pointed and final. i was hoping for something a little more subtle like 'cake is tasty' or 'look out for #1 and try not to step in #2' ... then we would have to get our thinking caps on. end of days is already here, we are just too stupid/ distracted to see that. more skeptical now.

[Opothecary]

This is 99% likely to be fake, but I'm glad that we got HQ-ish Play by Numbers artwork out of the deal.

It would be a lot more convincing without the additional synth work, but I could see the purpose of it as being used to hide some tricks used to pad out the track length, extending this part of B04 which is about 3:36 on R35TT to the known published length of Numerator (4:37 on the discography, 4:42 in the video)

In reality, I think A04 could absolutely be a fragment of Numerator given the sound of the track and what little we know about the sound of Play by Numbers, but probably not as it sounds in the video.

The shoegaze-y, loopy nature of this track makes it very easy to extend it to the "correct" length using the synths to hide the seams. This is literally probably the only track on R35TT that this sort of trick would work on, because it never really changes or evolves as it progresses, it's easy to copy and paste another part of the track to extend it and it would still sound correct as long as you can't spot where it was done exactly (that's where the "new" synths come in)

The source of the artwork is the biggest mystery because I don't ever remember seeing such a crisp version of this image, even on their official site when it used to be listed on the discography.

It's too bad that the larger version of the image isn't archived at archive.org.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010613025 ... umbers.gif

https://web.archive.org/web/20010606220 ... cords.html

R35TT of course is a whole bunch of material from Closes Vol. 1, Play by Numbers et al, so piling this extra stuff on top of what we know to be a legitimate track from one of those releases is kind of its downfall.

The stapled spine is another tell, its just speculation but looking at the "production values" of the more recent releases of Maxima and the Old Tunes tapes, I couldn't imagine a Play By Numbers booklet needing a staple, I'd be surprised if it wasn't anything more elaborate than a simple one page insert on the real CD. I COULD be wrong there but it's another thing that seems to have been overthought in the quest toward appearing legitimate.

An alternate explanation for the artwork is that it is legitimate but the audio isn't. According to the discography, this is the one pre-Twoism release that was initially pressed to CD (Catalog 3/Closes Vol. 1 being repressed to CD later), and that along with anecdotes of this being spotted at a couple of UK indie record stores many years ago (described by posters somewhere on here) makes me think that this is the most likely release of the bunch to be owned by a random person in the wild.

Sometimes less is more...more than anything else this just makes me wish someone would use their powers for good and clean up R35TT properly without the extra frills present here.

[egbdf]

The stapled spine is another tell, its just speculation but looking at the "production values" of the more recent releases of Maxima and the Old Tunes tapes, I couldn't imagine a Play By Numbers booklet needing a staple, I'd be surprised if it wasn't anything more elaborate than a simple one page insert on the real CD.

Yeah, I thought that too. Along the same lines, they made Atalanta and Hell Interface "featured channels" on their page. Very unsubtle.

[TOYOTAセ&#1]

Decided to download the vid from keepvid.com for archival purposes and I got the 720 quality version.

Nice clear image, yay c:

[Moloch]

I must say, that baby is creeping me out.

[rolypablo]

Just positioned the higher res version on top of the original artwork and the text is in a completely different position...



I also don't think it would be too difficult to increase the size of the image and smooth that face out so it appears to be better resolution.

[Techboy]

lol, i was playing the track on my phone this morning and I felt a bit weird pulling when I turned on my phone screen and it had made that creepy baby my lock screen background. i was like, shit, hide the screen.

Opothecary is, of course, right as ever when it comes to these old releases. rest assured I specifically contacted the guy who uploaded this and asked for a "powers for good" approach....

[Techboy]

Just positioned the higher res version on top of the original artwork and the text is in a completely different position...



I also don't think it would be too difficult to increase the size of the image and smooth that face out so it appears to be better resolution.

There are two verisons of the artwork - try doing the same thing with the artwork from wikipedia. Although yeah, it's still photoshopped haha. just based on something else.
That's the more interesting question though, where the alternative artwork images came from.

[rolypablo]

Ah... cool, well in that case this is all definitely legit.

[ZosoCon]

Opothecary is spot on here. My vote is that the artwork could be "legit", not the audio.

[Opothecary]

Opothecary is spot on here. My vote is that the artwork could be "legit", not the audio.

Yeah I'd really love the story behind it. It's a lot more interesting and more difficult to debunk than the song itself.

Unlike the HQ Hell Interface logo that helped sell that fake, I really don't think there is some existing HQ cover art of Play by Numbers out in the wild on the internet. The HI artwork for that fake was out there already, it's just that no one knew about it because well, it's Hell Interface and it's such an ephemeral thing that most people weren't keeping up on it too much, whereas the pre-Twoism stuff is like the Dead Sea Scrolls and people have been chasing every related morsel for 15 years.

The slight difference in font and positioning of the title is strange and makes me feel that the artwork is somehow fake after all. Photoshop isn't my forte, but how easy is it to hide Photoshop artifacts after you clean up an image, print it out and then photograph your work?

For some real out there conspiracy theory type stuff that I really don't find to be likely, maybe this is some kind of little project between Mike Paradinas and whoever bought/destroyed? those OT tapes.

I remember the implication being that Paradinas had more unheard BoC in his collection but only tried selling what was already publicly available out of "respect" for the band.

I'm the one probably overthinking it now, but with the idea of BoC fakes being pretty tired and played out, someone had to break new ground to avoid being laughed out of the room within a minute.

[Jonse]

I'll weigh in here:

It sounds like it could very easily be a fake and a remix of audiotrack 04b, but in the case that it's real and one of two is just a variation on the other, I wouldn't be surprised. I've stated before that if we were to hear all the old work we might find out that we've already heard much of it, through both Old Tunes tapes and R35TT - just under different names. Similar how to there's a decent chance this unknown track is Noatak.


Real? Fake? Nobody knows, obviously.

[twodogsdead]

I'll weigh in here:
Similar how to there's a decent chance this unknown track is Noatak.


Real? Fake? Nobody knows, obviously.

The most convincing part for me is that the voice appears to be saying "Noatak". Anybody else notice?

[Jonse]

I'll weigh in here:
Similar how to there's a decent chance this unknown track is Noatak.


Real? Fake? Nobody knows, obviously.

The most convincing part for me is that the voice appears to be saying "Noatak". Anybody else notice?

That's where, along with the track length and the minimalism that would have been common Old Tunes to High Scores era, most of the speculation came from.

[Yeah That's Right]

I'll weigh in here:
Similar how to there's a decent chance this unknown track is Noatak.


Real? Fake? Nobody knows, obviously.

The most convincing part for me is that the voice appears to be saying "Noatak". Anybody else notice?

That's where, along with the track length and the minimalism that would have been common Old Tunes to High Scores era, most of the speculation came from.

I'm of the opinion that yes, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that this track is Noatak, but that's based almost entirely on the track length, musical style and presentation relative to when in the band's career it would have been released, and the fact that some unknown sources state Hooper Bay was the first album to feature children's voices, a prominent feature of this track. Yep, it's all speculation that leads towards a possible truth.

But... I really don't think ANY of the voice samples here sound like they're saying Noatak. I've listened to this track many times (it's a personal favourite of their unreleased material, amazing atmosphere I must say) but never managed to hear that. The little girl's voice at the start sounds is pretty unintelligible but seems to be saying along the lines of 'brother', the synthesised male voice is truly unintelligible, and the samples of the woman in the latter half distinctly sound like "see the rainbow".

Also bare in mind that none of BoC's tracks to date featured the name of a song as a voice sample.

[zeoevil]

...the name of a song as a voice sample.

Niagara? One Very Important Thought? 1969? In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country? I Love U? Trapped? Iraq Says? Apparatus? Yeah, I know. I'll shut up now.

[Yeah That's Right]

Whelp, I feel I've effectively been put in my place...


Still can't see that Noatak is said anywhere in the track though, for what it's worth

[Vostok]

Still can't see that Noatak is said anywhere in the track though, for what it's worth

its the vocoder voice that comes in at ~2:40 on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CembDbw18_w

[Jonse]

I'll weigh in here:
Similar how to there's a decent chance this unknown track is Noatak.


Real? Fake? Nobody knows, obviously.

The most convincing part for me is that the voice appears to be saying "Noatak". Anybody else notice?

That's where, along with the track length and the minimalism that would have been common Old Tunes to High Scores era, most of the speculation came from.

I'm of the opinion that yes, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that this track is Noatak, but that's based almost entirely on the track length, musical style and presentation relative to when in the band's career it would have been released, and the fact that some unknown sources state Hooper Bay was the first album to feature children's voices, a prominent feature of this track. Yep, it's all speculation that leads towards a possible truth.

But... I really don't think ANY of the voice samples here sound like they're saying Noatak. I've listened to this track many times (it's a personal favourite of their unreleased material, amazing atmosphere I must say) but never managed to hear that. The little girl's voice at the start sounds is pretty unintelligible but seems to be saying along the lines of 'brother', the synthesised male voice is truly unintelligible, and the samples of the woman in the latter half distinctly sound like "see the rainbow".

Also bare in mind that none of BoC's tracks to date featured the name of a song as a voice sample.

It's the vocoder one. Sounds like "noooaaaatak".