Post-WXAXRXP Societas X Tape Tracklist & Discussion

Everything related to our favorite Scottish duo.

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Dayvan Cowboy
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bungler666 wrote:
Moz wrote:Any new leads on fretless bass track? If found this could cure corona virus.


I think it's a BoC original. Especially since they mention in several interviews that they have recorded a ton of songs where you would never believe it's them. Also it sounds a lot like Julie and Candy. We also know that they own a fretless bass since we can hear it in Dave I'm a Real Traditionalist off OTV2.


Which track is this again? It's been awhile since I've listened.

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Eagle Minded
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It's the one at 1:29:27

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Boqurant
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I've been doing some edits of full Societas X tracks to match the versions played on the tape. I hope these would be appreciated, the subreddit mostly just ignores what I contribute lol. Also doing some clean uploads of separate tracks for easier access.

EDITS:

Dance With Us Lord
https://youtu.be/UJmrDv1FhEk

Ek Tu Ho Ek Main Hoon
https://youtu.be/Hs0n59WloD8

TRACK UPLOADS:

We Have Come To Bless The House
https://youtu.be/OSx6JsgSRLg

The Other Stranger
https://youtu.be/InUSnBvLZoM

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Eagle Minded
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What's the difference between these versions of the tracks and the normal ones? Am I just not listening close enough?

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Boqurant
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The edits (Dance and Ek Tu) are full length versions of the original tracks, edited to sound similar to the respective Societas versions.

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Eagle Minded
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Outstanding work, ~Nick.

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Dayvan Cowboy
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I've come to a conclusion about the Fretless Bass Track. I mean I know someone will find it tomorrow and I'll be wrong, but for now, this is my theory. I think it's BoC.

So, the point of the Societas X Tape was probably to say "look at all the great musical gems that are out there if you go off the beaten tracks". And what did we do? Instead of taking the lesson to heart and going out to find our own gems we pored over every second of the tape tracking down all the sources they used, because *of course we did*. :lol:

But I reckon BoC knew by now we'd do that, so they snuck one track on there from their archives, knowing that we'd go mad trying to find it (it's like the old trick about letting loose three pigs numbered 1, 2 and 4 so everyone spends hours searching for pig #3). In the process of hunting we'd do what we were meant to do, listening to all manner of obscure shit.

Like I say, I'm probably well wrong here but for now that's what I'm sticking to, and I'm keeping looking in the knowledge I'll probably never find it because the search is the prize.

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Eagle Minded
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I couldn't agree more, Negamuse. Well said :evil:

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Eagle Minded
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unless they went through the effort of pressing to it vinyl idk about that. you can hear light surface crackle throughout and someone accidentally thumping the turntable at one point

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Happy Cycler
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I have been tracking down some really great YouTube channels that post obscure tapes and records in their entirety. These are a great place to discover new music and potentially dig for the missing Societas X songs.

11db11
Adventures In Sound
Alex Carriere
Best Record
Funked Up East
Harakiri Diat
Heliae
Klepperderep
Muted Tones
Ricardo Marana
Saturn Archives
Skeleton Archives
Sounds Of The Dawn (This one even has a radio show on NTS!)
Tape Counter
Terminal Passage
The Dungeon Synth Archives (A bit of a stretch, but who knows)
Thebestdream I Had
Vapor Memory (Again, you never know...)
Xerf Xpec

Take a tour through a couple of them. There is some neat stuff in there!

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mechanismj wrote:I have been tracking down some really great YouTube channels that post obscure tapes and records in their entirety. These are a great place to discover new music and potentially dig for the missing Societas X songs.

11db11
Adventures In Sound
Alex Carriere
Best Record
Funked Up East
Harakiri Diat
Heliae
Klepperderep
Muted Tones
Ricardo Marana
Saturn Archives
Skeleton Archives
Sounds Of The Dawn (This one even has a radio show on NTS!)
Tape Counter
Terminal Passage
The Dungeon Synth Archives (A bit of a stretch, but who knows)
Thebestdream I Had
Vapor Memory (Again, you never know...)
Xerf Xpec

Take a tour through a couple of them. There is some neat stuff in there!

I think many of the missing tracks are probably going to be library music from the 70s or 80s.
This site has a hell of a lot of rips of old library music albums: https://librarymusicthemes.net/index.php?board=4.0

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Happy Cycler
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sixtyniner wrote:I think many of the missing tracks are probably going to be library music from the 70s or 80s.
This site has a hell of a lot of rips of old library music albums: https://librarymusicthemes.net/index.php?board=4.0


Yup. I have scoured that forum before. Great resource. The 11db11 channel I linked is filled to the brim with a lot of those albums. There is one or two huge videos of April Orchestra collections on there that may be worth surfing through.

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Eagle Minded
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I've been scavenging stuff on that forum since SX tape came out with no luck. I've lost track on how many these albums I've listened to, there is no end. Almost every country had their music production companies and releases. It's like a whole separate world of music unknown to most people. And some of the stuff is really ahead of its time, like obvious house or techno music from the 70s.

First I thought this track could be british, then french, italian, canadian, didn't find anything like it. If someone has an ear for harmonies and melodies, to which country or side of the world would you put that track? The closest thing I found was some 70-80s porn soundtrack (I think it was Italian) but only because it used this "unconventional" type of arrangement, like getting more and more intense. I presume it was used in a sex scene.

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Happy Cycler
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Moz wrote:I've been scavenging stuff on that forum since SX tape came out with no luck. I've lost track on how many these albums I've listened to, there is no end. Almost every country had their music production companies and releases. It's like a whole separate world of music unknown to most people. And some of the stuff is really ahead of its time, like obvious house or techno music from the 70s.

First I thought this track could be british, then french, italian, canadian, didn't find anything like it. If someone has an ear for harmonies and melodies, to which country or side of the world would you put that track? The closest thing I found was some 70-80s porn soundtrack (I think it was Italian) but only because it used this "unconventional" type of arrangement, like getting more and more intense. I presume it was used in a sex scene.


You're referring to the fretless bass track, right?

I was convinced that was a Gary Numan B-Side for a short period but I had no luck finding anything in that regard. It is definitely from a record. I have heard a TON of library music and I don't think I have ever heard anything quite like this one, either. That kind of abrupt ending makes me think it is some B-Side or rough take.

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Dayvan Cowboy
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mechanismj wrote:
You're referring to the fretless bass track, right?

I was convinced that was a Gary Numan B-Side for a short period but I had no luck finding anything in that regard. It is definitely from a record. I have heard a TON of library music and I don't think I have ever heard anything quite like this one, either. That kind of abrupt ending makes me think it is some B-Side or rough take.


The way that it's riffing on the one chord progression except for the intro and outro does make it sound a bit like a jam of sorts but I dunno, there's too many interlocking parts for it to really be a jam, I don't know. I'm really thinking closing credits of a film, and its position toward the end of the mix fits right with that feeling of credits rolling.

I've spent the last week looking through library music online for any track over about 3:30 in length and come up empty handed. I'm working on the assumption it's after 1963 (because there's a mellotron) and before 1983 (because everything went very DX7 after that). I don't know what else to try. What style of music would you say this is?

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Negamuse wrote:The way that it's riffing on the one chord progression except for the intro and outro does make it sound a bit like a jam of sorts but I dunno, there's too many interlocking parts for it to really be a jam, I don't know. I'm really thinking closing credits of a film, and its position toward the end of the mix fits right with that feeling of credits rolling.

I've spent the last week looking through library music online for any track over about 3:30 in length and come up empty handed. I'm working on the assumption it's after 1963 (because there's a mellotron) and before 1983 (because everything went very DX7 after that). I don't know what else to try. What style of music would you say this is?

I love that we all keep coming back to this track from the mix – It has definitely stuck around in my head! Judging from the midsy vinyl sound of this track I would think that your date range is pretty on-point. As far as identification is concerned, I wonder if the iconic fretless bass part could lead to identification, perhaps by figuring out who played it. Michael Manring was a student of Jaco Pastorius and took the fretless bass to unbelievable heights, but the 70s sound & the bass melody/tone doesn't really fit him. He played in a fusion group called Montreux that might've come up with an arrangement similar this track, but again the timeline doesn't seem to fit. But as far as style of music is concerned, I suppose jazz fusion comes to mind? The controversial term 'new age' also comes to mind, but again we were onto the 80s and 90s by then.

I suppose I'll have to keep digging further back into the history of the fretless bass world!
mikeyholmes.bandcamp.com

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Eagle Minded
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I am also pretty sure those are not live drums, more like a drum machine.

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Happy Cycler
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I would say all of you are looking in the right places. Library, jazz fusion, and yes, that is definitely a drum machine. Any idea which one? Perhaps that would help this along.

I am going to dig through the Terminal Passage channel a bit more tomorrow. This sounds very much like what they upload.

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Eagle Minded
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mechanismj wrote:I would say all of you are looking in the right places. Library, jazz fusion, and yes, that is definitely a drum machine. Any idea which one? Perhaps that would help this along.

I am going to dig through the Terminal Passage channel a bit more tomorrow. This sounds very much like what they upload.


It's weird. Snare sounds like sampled and panned to right. Hi hat sound or tambourine or whatever that is might help identify it. Kick drum is kind of hollow. This sounds more like a beat on the MPC more than any other drum machine. I tried to rearrange the chord progression to sound like julie and candy and yeah, it kind of works. Also when the tempo is matched they are in similar key. The flute melody in julie and candy is kind of similar to bass thing going on here when the pitch is changed. Whatever this is it is a very unique track. I've never heard anything like it before or after.

I've been following Terminal Passage for a while. It's one of the best channels on youtube right now.

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Dayvan Cowboy
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I will just add that I've always thought this elusive track was from the early 80s, hence that similar bass sound from that Alan Gowen track (Umbrellas) I posted last year. That was a Canterbury Scene jazz fusion album and the fretless bassist was Richard Sinclair.

However, I did post this in the Canterbury Scene FB group and everyone (including Aymeric Leroy, the master of all things Canterbury) drew a blank. So maybe just check out that era. British Jazz fusion from the early eighties
Warning: This numerology post is not to be taken 2 seriously.

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