Let's speculate on certain sounds and samples.

[Negamuse]

Deezer's new tool, Spleeter, can separate several audio tracks from mp3. Is anyone here willing to try it out? It can separate up to 5 'stems', I started trying it on Tomorrow's Harvest on my office but it makes my crappy PC crash. It would be interesting to hear what can come out of it, maybe we can find something interesting.

https://github.com/deezer/spleeter

What this does differently is use a machine learning algorithm trained on a huge dataset of music to be able to know the difference between sounds in a way that goes beyond the usual things like stereo placement and frequency. A piano and a human voice overlap all over the place but this splits them apart pretty cleanly. Now, that model is more useful for, you know, your standard pop or rock track. But you can train the model yourself if you have enough source material to put through it. (Which I don't). So theoretically, this could be even better if you wanted to really invest the time training it.

I've run a few tunes through this already, and yeah it is interesting, though I've not come up with anything new from BoC's stuff that we haven't already heard. That's not because it's not any good, like I say - I've been making mashups for years and this thing is INSANELY good at splitting things that were pretty much "forget it" till now - it's just that most stuff has been discovered already. It works better on stuff ripped straight off the CDs, MP3 encoding leaves a bunch of psycho-acoustic compression glitter behind.

What it did do was confirm a bunch of vocal samples that had already been found on BoCpages.

[Valotonin]

Negamuse, although I generally avoid things that involve machine learning, is it possible to use the Multitracks harvested from the old website to enable it to have a better chance at splitting BoC's music, at least the production from the Geogaddi era and before as that is what it will mostly be fed.

In another way, I feel like this is potentially somewhat invasive. When recording Loveless, Kevin Shields wouldn't even allow the sound engineers to hear his vocal recordings, instead waving his hand to signal he had finished. In BoC's case, I don't know that they would be comfortable having their music dissected artificially. This is the deep-fake porn equivalent in aural art, potentially.

[Negamuse]

I can't find where I read it now but I think the models it ships with were trained on a corpus of something like thousands of tracks, so I can't imagine it's possible to use the old multitracks for that, no, it's not a big enough pool to train on that specifically, I'd have thought. But you might be able to get together a bunch of stuff from similar genres to make it easier to discriminate individual sounds. It already does pretty well on the 5stems model it comes with at pulling out speech and drums, for example, bass is a bit muddy because it's looking for, well. A bass. Everything else gets shunted into "other", with the occasional snippet turning up in "piano", not because it IS a piano, just that every so often things line up and it thinks it hears something.

Is it invasive? Ehh, kinda, I guess. This kind of thing enables transformative work and screwing around with things in a way that was thought to be impossible but it's no magic bullet. It's like sampling, it has the power to be democratising, artistically freeing or shady depending on how cynically it's used.

[Valotonin]

Ah I see your perspective, actually. I am very much in favor of those that want the right to sample freely in terms of the copyright (originally in place to protect the small artists that it is now used to litigate against) vs small musicians scenario that is being fought. This isn't too dissimilar a situation, inevitably, it is just sampling. BoC using methods to either isolate or recreate parts of tracks is something I am in favor of and that has produced stunning results, it would be strange if they weren't in favor of others using their work for the same.

[Soul_Slip]

Abbey Road studios has a hardware version of something similar to this... they essentially market it as a real-time stem mono splitter that can split up wav files into individual instrument channels. I was going to purchase a vinyl mastering package from them about a year ago. They call it “De-mixing”!...
Link...
https://www.abbeyroad.com/de-mix

[Valotonin]

phpBB [media]

The track beginning at around the 3:40 mark is very akin to Reach For The Dead in essence.
I recall an interview where they (boc) expressed interest, very vaguely and cautiously as they always tend to be in relation to political subjects, but in mentioning that the Arab Spring was a turning point for the world and that they suspected that in the future (I am paraphrasing from memory so I apologise if it is slightly incorrect) people would view everything from the perspective of pre/post Arab Spring. A lot of the imagery in the TH artwork related to military vehicles and devices used in the middle east.

One of those things that I wouldn't have posted, but since the alleged sample for Olson that I had been sitting on for years thinking that it wasn't close enough and that no one would be receptive to its similarities was eventually found by someone else and, to my surprise, everyone agreed, I didn't want to sit on something else.

That piano tune is rather similar to Reach For The Dead. Blocked in the UK so I am watching using a proxy as I am a particular fan of quite literally all of Ben Anderson's work as a journalist.

P.S. What is the deal with the "Nazi's Fuck off" on the WXAXRXP cards that come with the records? I agree, they can go the hell away, but that seems a bit politically direct and not what I expected. I would feel the same if they wrote "Communists Fuck Off". It just seems kind of childish and what a 19 year old dosed up on energy drinks who wants something to be angry about to validate their existence to themselves would write. It shatters the mystery a bit and it was added later on compared with the other vague and interesting messages and sentence fragments.

P.P.S. Soul_Slip, I had a look at the link you posted and it was v interesting. I am guessing that it can help you with EQ and levels of individual segments of tracks, but if you wanted to strip the track back and remove certain layers, the cracks in the algorithm would start to show possibly. Let us know/ show us if you use it, though because it would be nice to see what it can do and you seem more than capable of working around some of its potential issues.

[Soul_Slip]

Very interesting documentary and I love the music. Definitely reminds me of TH. Lately I have been collecting documentary scores and have been looking into artists that make music for them. Those historic “turning points” can be quite alarming sometimes so I definitely am empathetic to the brothers’ concerns... and especially now in regards to what is happening in my home country of the USA. I feel as though I am living in a nightmare and we are all doomed here haha. This administration is appaling and as of late, some of the laws potus has pushed/passed with his chronies and whips is horrific.... it seems they want to turn us into a communist nation while fooling everyone into thinking it is the opposite.... he is stripping away our clean air and water pollution standards for corporations and using his authority to force grab private land to build a stupid wall... and where I am from in the North, he is suing my state to force a mining operation of the most toxic degree in the one of the most pristine habitat this country has... the BWCA.... I penned an op’Ed years ago on facebook with a deep epiphany I had about everything that is happening and people called me a tin hat wearing conspiracy theorist... including my brother and now I have been proven right 100%! They have all admitted to being fools haha so now I am looking into leaving this country.... but anyways, on a better, more positive note, I have been really studying Tomorrow’s Harvest in theme and production and am still so impressed with what they have achieved... I was really impressed with the VHS recordings and processing they achieved and was inspired to produce my own full live band VHS recorded album that I am the most proud of compared to anything else I have achieved... it is my own narrative of the times titled “Alt Nexus”... which will be the theme of what is the “alternative nexus” that we could achieve or reach to subvert the current trajectory of programmed hate and division... I used hundreds of layered instruments pinched together from multiple tape recorders of varying formats and found a VHS recorder that sounds so full and present and some how did something magical to the mixes/recordings. I also just landed my first real career job in commercial hospital IT management so my revenue will vastly go up and now I can afford something like what I posted above. I feel my new album could benefit by something like the De-Mixing and am curious to hear a different studio’s take on my music although at this point I feel it is unnecessary due to the vast learning curve I have had to achieve in recording what I truly want to achieve with zero processing in digital or with zero vst... BoC interviews have almost been my analog guide bible for this haha I really enjoy their talks of gear and recording techniques and have applied everything I have learned from that and from listening to them with a clear ear/mind...
sorry If I ranted or derailed this at all I just felt compelled to say what I have always wanted to say... at least about where we are at as a species currently haha... and thanks for the kind words my friend! Once this album is finished I will gladly gift you a free copy and also anyone else who may be interested! Cheers mates!
I am going to research Arab Springs and other important events... I onced heard on NPR about a political event that happened at midnight on June 9th that I believe is what the song is a soundtrack to... I forget the details but will post my theory on that once I find that radio broadcast.

[Stavorius]

Anyone ever found that interview clip from Poppy Seed?

[Valotonin]

Anyone ever found that interview clip from Poppy Seed?

No, much to my dismay.
I think the speculation over it drifted into the territory of it potentially being one of BoC's own recordings from their visiting the Branch Davidians.

[sixtyniner]

Anyone ever found that interview clip from Poppy Seed?

No, much to my dismay.
I think the speculation over it drifted into the territory of it potentially being one of BoC's own recordings from their visiting the Branch Davidians.

I doubt this considering it sounds like there's a female interviewer/interviewee talking about "destructive cults":

"Experts estimate that there are approximately 2500 to 3000 cult organisations in the United Stated today, so most of those cults have bad leaders. There are millions of people at any given time in the United States involved in what we call destructive cults that are being controlled by certain ... type of Jim Jones, Charles Manson, David Koresh and all of his followers"

And then the narrator (possibly the same woman) introduces Amo Bishop Roden:

"Amo Bishop Roden lives on the compound in Waco today. Although not a follower of David Koresh, she is a devoted Branch Davidian."

I think it's probably a documentary or news report.

[sixtyniner]

I've just realised that from 4:30 in Chromakey Dreamcoat, there's a slowed down voice in the right channel:

phpBB [media]

What I hear is something like "it started out of god! barbecue see that thunder"

[luminousdusk]

Nice find. Although I'm not a fan of peanut butter.

Reminds me of the Minute Maid commerical on Societas X

[sixtyniner]

"Peanut butter" is a good shout actually. BBQ peanut butter?

And yeah it may be something like an old TV or radio commercial like the vignettes from Societas

[Negamuse]

"It's doggone gone!" "Peanut butter"

[Radiobuzz]

At one point on "In The Annexe" the children are singing "take the axe, take the axe". I didn't find where this comes from though.

[Torn n Frayed]

phpBB [media]

Intro to Reach the Dead.

[sixtyniner]

At one point on "In The Annexe" the children are singing "take the axe, take the axe". I didn't find where this comes from though.

The samples in In The Annexe are reversed, I think

phpBB [media]

I hear children chanting "mary jay, mary jay", then "danger, danger, danger"

[IronMark]

At one point on "In The Annexe" the children are singing "take the axe, take the axe". I didn't find where this comes from though.

The samples in In The Annexe are reversed, I think

phpBB [media]

I hear children chanting "mary jay, mary jay", then "danger, danger, danger"

I have spent many hours going over and over the children's voices on In The Annexe to work out where it's from. Trying loads of different EQing and tricks to bring them out. From all of that I still don't have anything definitive but my best guess is that the first instance of children's voices sounds very like the nursery rhyme "here we go round the mulberry bush" otherwise known as "this is the way we brush our teeth" and the second instance of the voices sounds like "chase the rabbit, chase the rabbit" - interestingly there is a Sesame Street sketch on Youtube where kids are being chased by a giant rabbit which gave me a bit of hope but ultimately I couldn't find anything more than that.

[ZosoCon]

I've just realised that from 4:30 in Chromakey Dreamcoat, there's a slowed down voice in the right channel:

What I hear is something like "it started out of god! barbecue see that thunder"

Nice find! It's from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial from 1979
"Peanut Butter. It's doggone good!"

[sixtyniner]

I've just realised that from 4:30 in Chromakey Dreamcoat, there's a slowed down voice in the right channel:

What I hear is something like "it started out of god! barbecue see that thunder"

Nice find! It's from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial from 1979
"Peanut Butter. It's doggone good!"

Holy shet! Nice one mate