Strange Soup/The Thrift Store Tape Discussion

Discussions related to music in general.

Moderators: Mexicola, 2020k, Fredd-E, Aesthetics

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 142
Joined: 6 Apr 2021
I listened to all of the VHS/Randomstranger tunes constantly for the last week on repeat and I have come to the conclusion that these are definitely intended as a gift - regardless of who it is. I apologize for going back and forth, but I felt a ton of psychological stress during the easter egg hunt. There was a lot of time invested in solving this that I guess I burned myself out and upon seeing some of the response about the possible AI influence, I closed the book so I would not (as some have stated previously) feel stupid and mocked. I have otherwise been super optimistic about this entire thing since the very beginning so I hope none of my words hurt anyones feelings.

I have also been adding some of the tunes in to my gaming clips and can not get enough of them. Kudos to the creator, and hopefully we get to see a Sequoia Films rendition of the tracks soon. Much love everyone.

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 28
Joined: 7 Apr 2022
I've been asking around about AI music and it now seems unlikely that the Thrift Store Tape could have been created that way. This is a response I got from the Artificial Intelligence Music youtube channel.

"Unfortunately, the software I use does not allow you to use your own music to train the AI models, so something like you are suggesting is not possible (at the moment). I do know that there are a lot of music composers that are working with the Mubert team to create music and then train the models on said music. I don't think they allow any copyrighted music to be used to train on. Something like you suggest has been done before, see here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dzpj/ ... sic-review but I'm not sure that the software used to do that is freely available."

The mystery continues.

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 14 Mar 2023
Exactly what I been saying. I've tried to find AI programs for music the same way DallE2 or Mid journey works and Can't do so.

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
@Eliotsworld1985 Apologies I stand corrected. I watched the vid again with the zoom of the sky and then I saw there is the SP (short play at the start of VHS videos) so and checked it against the the thrift shop video posted by Dan Fingerman and THE ZOOM BIT IS CUT OUT OF THE ORIGINAL THRIFT SHOP VIDEO!
So that only leaves two options either Dan or the original poster chopped that part out and is 4226 or 4226/Random stranger did actually make the thrift shop vid.

That would require quite a lot of foresight. There is a lot of mastermind stuff going on with all this and some amatuerness which maybe even part of the grand plan. Some great tunes some which totally sound like they could be BOC
Last edited by SonnyJim on Mon Mar 27, 2023 3:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
I've loaded the video to youtube I think it was titled "Last"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikLPlyO5nQ

It contained this text in the description I haven't been able to find any codes so far not saying there isn't any.

01.Gravity
02.Strange Soup
03.Firefleyez
04.Lunardreamz
05.Untitles II
06.Eastern Seaboard
07.Cyto-Sine
08.Tilt-a-Whirl
09.Colleyedoscope
10.Bye 4 Now

The day was near, the end is here. A sultry sea, this ship I steer.

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
Note that track two is strange soup..

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 14 Mar 2023
@SonnyJim: All good. There's certainly nothing wrong with exercising critical thinking and being skeptical. I just don't want to write it off so quickly and assume it's an AI and editing software. Someone mentioned locking the thread down and that would really suck because that, I feel would really hinder anymore future clues if they should come up and we'll certainly never figure out the truth.

User avatar
Eagle Minded
Status: Offline
Posts: 404
Joined: 27 Jan 2021
Location: https://skylinesabove.bandcamp.com/music
I like the way things are going.

Orbited, you make great points, and you're level headed. I like your approach - a listener not much concerned with whether or not something is or isn't something or other. That's exactly the approach I think we need to have toward this stuff.

Frindia, you have been ON IT! I wish I would have been there to see it all unfold!

So, what we have now is some great music, an ARG or two or three that may have ended (I have no clue on that part of this) and right now it seems like, at least for me, the thought is, "What happens next?"

Perhaps, the artist will come out. Clayton is here now, so there's that bit of hope and optimism that we actually CAN meet the artists behind some of this great music coming out.

I think there is a connection to Dan Fingerman. His other videos show lots of things that point to him being VERY capable of making such music, and he originally posted the thing. BUT, will he commit to answering whether or not he was involved?

And then, recently I had this thought: "Instead of saying 'BoC vibes', how about just calling it 'BoC', whatever it is, if it sounds like it's in the same vein?"

I'm going to go ahead and do this.

For the sake of example, see the next sentence. "Tycho? Yeah, totally Boards of Canada, man." "That one track by that artist that I can't find any info on? That's Boards of Canada. I don't care if YOU found the artist name and it's 'The Beatles', I'm telling you that it's totally Boards of Canada."

VHS Tape and Random Tunes? It's Boards of Canada. It ticks the boxes that I need ticked, it satisfies the insatiable thirst for new and interesting music...the ARG component seems right up a lot of people's alley, which is great. I suck at them but I am amazed by their complexity and the spirit of adventure they bring out of everyone (not everyone, just the cool people here).

I think the next step is to wait for something. Just a little bit longer...
Sirens calling out catastrophe, waves of mourning rippling through hillsides, an exodus for us all

User avatar
Boqurant
Status: Offline
Posts: 58
Joined: 25 Aug 2020
Were/are there any hints in the "Last" video? It was up so briefly I didn't have a chance to look closely

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
karpeggi wrote:Were/are there any hints in the "Last" video? It was up so briefly I didn't have a chance to look closely


@karpeggi there is some backwards vocals, other than that besides the end clips there doesn't seem to be any hidden stuff. Musically there is some interesting stuff going on

@Sky and Trails. I don't think Dan Fingerman is the artist, the thing with the original tape being loaded up and then all of it being taken down it fits the MO of 4226. After watching the random tunes vid on magic orange channel I saw all the bits that I missed with the stormy clouds etc so for sure it's 4226 who has has made the original tape unless they somehow got the original footage of the sky. I saw your comment about the audio quality being higher. it's all very curious.

The thing is it's a lot of work to make all this and quite skillful musically. Random tunes seems to have a bunch of loops and samples that are taken from BOC albums and then arranged to sound like they are the actual synth sounds, there is a lot of original stuff mixed in with harmonies and drum tracks with rhythms taken from BOC albums as well.


Who has time to just make this sort of thing and then just take it down? The more it goes on the more I think it is actually BOC just messing with us

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 159
Joined: 10 Apr 2021
Location: Brazil
It's like BoC decided to release the BoC Set but separated in several parts, and being something very rare.
The ARGs could be just a way to make this more difficult to unlock the songs, and the songs not having an official confirmation of an artist behind this, takes the possibility to BoC trying not to associate the BoC Set with his discography, so the BoC Set could be associated to other artists, or just an annonymous.

User avatar
Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 41
Joined: 21 Apr 2022
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
I totally agree with Magic Orange. I imagine BOC see their early stuff (like most bands do) as not being quite good enough for an official release, but they can’t have failed to notice the rabid interest in it.
One way to release it would be to take the best bits and turn it into a mix. They’ve then gone on to incorporate more well known tunes that existed as dramatically different early versions. They seem to have gone to great effort to find contextual samples that either call out the year they were made or place the listener in that time-frame. I’ve been listening through some of it today and I think I’m going to try decipher some of the back-masked parts

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
As someone said they are signed to warp records so wouldn't be able to release anything high quality except through the label and not be any monetary gain other than stirring things up for the next album.

I still think it's someone who is just mixing in some samples and writing harmony tracks they are quite good at it whoever they are.

All the profile silhouettes have gotta mean something and the cover to random tunes has that lady and the kid at all different ages, very similar to the cover from music has the rights to children. The women on the cover have the same hair parts and colour. That's all I've got so far.. gotta start somewhere

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
Also @ Magic orange I think you are missing a vid on the compilations, the one that was on the sure FredIn channel I don't got it though maybe someone does

User avatar
Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 41
Joined: 21 Apr 2022
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
I know this has been said before but since the track list for both 'Last' and "Random Tunes 2" share tracks with the first mix uploaded, 'Strange Soup' it's clear that the whole 'found this in a thrift store business' was indeed entirely a fabrication. Since the track list was present on that channel, despite there being no mention of any labelling on the VHS cassette.
It's a shame we can't get more information on the original poster. I guess this is an admission from them that the opening move in the ARG was a fabrication.

'Last' shares some tracks with 'Eleven Missing Tracks'. 'Gravity' and 'Firefleyes'.
Gravity is played backwards on both mixes and starts with a voice saying "Needed some help".
If you reverse the tune there's the same voice saying “Constantly aware of the pull of gravity”. Played in the correct direction, IMHO it sounds a lot like the kind of thing you'd hear on Hi-Scores or Twoism.

https://voca.ro/1kWsnDHIe9nd

'Firefleyes' starts with a voice similar to the one on 'One Very Important Thought' saying:

“The moon and the stars began to glow, ripples in the water yielded a wonderful sight. Like a dreaming landscape”

I can't find the quote anywhere. Does anyone else know how to identify it?

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 159
Joined: 10 Apr 2021
Location: Brazil
SonnyJim wrote:Also @ Magic orange I think you are missing a vid on the compilations, the one that was on the sure FredIn channel I don't got it though maybe someone does


The name of the video of Sure Fredin channel is: Reveal

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 142
Joined: 6 Apr 2021
phpBB [media]


:]

User avatar
Moderator
Status: Online
Posts: 4241
Joined: 28 Nov 2004
Location: Belgium
SonnyJim wrote:I've loaded the video to youtube I think it was titled "Last"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikLPlyO5nQ

It contained this text in the description I haven't been able to find any codes so far not saying there isn't any.

01.Gravity
02.Strange Soup
03.Firefleyez
04.Lunardreamz
05.Untitles II
06.Eastern Seaboard
07.Cyto-Sine
08.Tilt-a-Whirl
09.Colleyedoscope
10.Bye 4 Now

The day was near, the end is here. A sultry sea, this ship I steer.

Compare your finding to what people already discovered one year earlier in the Big Thread.

GENERAL NEW RELEASE SPECULATION TOPIC
Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:14 am
viewtopic.php?p=304223#p304223
mondaffe wrote:Interesting that if you Google the channel name UC0lL5hMzu0LkkKrw91GZd3Q, you get an alternative title and tracklist in the cache

https://www.google.com/search?q=UC0lL5h ... e&ie=UTF-8

Strange Soup

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Eureka
3. Tilt-a-whirl
4. Lunardreamz
5. Cytosine
6. Kaleidoscope
7. Fractal
8. Raindancer
9. 9teen70
10. Untitled

Friendly Stranger
Status: Offline
Posts: 22
Joined: 8 Apr 2022
@Electronaldmcdonald2 I noticed that too the voice sounds heaps similar to very important thought.
A lot of the samples from the original BOC albums have been identified where they came from if it hasn't been identified yet then that would be strong evidence for it being BOC

@Magic Orange my bad that vid was on the compilation

User avatar
Eagle Minded
Status: Offline
Posts: 404
Joined: 27 Jan 2021
Location: https://skylinesabove.bandcamp.com/music
Wow, some more activity in this thread!

I agree with statements that this is a nice way for BoC to put some stuff out there for those interested, while bypassing any issues with the label, etc.

It's also interesting what Fredd-E pointed out.
If that was ONE YEAR ago, then this has all been planned ahead of time, laid out strategically?

If so, then this is one hell of a ride. I CAN see how some of us here would have the time and energy to try such a thing, but at the same time, there are LOTS of things at play. The music seems to match the aesthetic and vibe...all the bits seem to fit into the mythology and lore of BoC...there's the ARG aspect that fans really like.

It's a LOT of things for one person to do in their spare time. But, even if it is one person - holy hell, they're good.

I still lean toward BoC. I'm embarrassed of my old work. If I found that I actually had fans, and that they were interested, being nearly 50, maybe older, I think the hostility would have worn off to the point that I'd indulge my fanbase with something like this.

Also, let's just assume there is a new album floating around waiting to be pressed into vinyl. BoC isn't Fort Knox. Try as they might, they can't hide it forever. Maybe out of boredom they have been dicking around on the internet and decided to give us something cool.
Or, maybe this is the early stuff released finally, like someone else mentioned.

Sorry I'm not quoting and linking.

Electronaldmcdonald2: I like where you're going with this.

I still agree with you that this is a lot of work for someone just screwing around. Too much work for that, honestly. This isn't trolling but it's something. Maybe this is BoC dangling the world's biggest carrot and they know how to play this game well.

I'm rambling...
Sirens calling out catastrophe, waves of mourning rippling through hillsides, an exodus for us all

PreviousNext

Return to This Random Sound

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Fredd-E and 24 guests