Post-WXAXRXP Societas X Tape Tracklist & Discussion

Everything related to our favorite Scottish duo.

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Sherbet Head
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mincer_ray wrote:excited to post this, i dont think this specifically has been identified yet, or at least the link isnt correct on bocpages, it comes with a small story:

#20 seems to be correctly identified as "Non Passa Piu" HOWEVER the original source of the actual sample itself is much more interesting.

in late 2015 an internet archive user uploaded a K-mart in store audio tape archive here: https://archive.org/details/attentionkm ... ?tab=about

these tapes are actual rips of real in store audio that was played in actual K-mart stores. its a super cool treasure trove of muzak mixes from the late 80s and early 90s and myself and some friends got totally obsessed listening to all of them. a online microscene also popped up of people who sampled the tapes to make albums. i ended up making this: https://curatorbeats.bandcamp.com/album/k-m-r-t and you can find other related stuff on bandcamp with the kmart tag: https://bandcamp.com/discover/kmart

ANYWAYS i know a lot of these tapes inside and out and there were some pretty amazing samples that i never got around to using. one of them is the exact sample that ended up as #20 on societas! blew my mind when i first listened to this tape, i couldnt believe they had picked out one of the samples i had tried to work with. its a strange dark muzak version of Non Passa Piu!

you can hear it at about 48:00 on the august 1990 tape: https://archive.org/details/KmartAugust1990

and, funny enough, you can hear it isolated on this youtube video that doesnt know the name of the song (you guys did!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dauE9JhPmKg

it doesnt surprise me at all to learn that BOC also listened to the kmart tapes, totally in line with their style. in some ways the whole of societas is even in the style of a kmart tape (also not surprising). i encourage you all to check out the kmart tapes collection if you got the time they are totally worth it. thank you for reading!


God damn that is niche, what a find!

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Friendly Stranger
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mincer_ray wrote:these tapes are actual rips of real in store audio that was played in actual K-mart stores. its a super cool treasure trove of muzak mixes from the late 80s and early 90s and myself and some friends got totally obsessed listening to all of them. a online microscene also popped up of people who sampled the tapes to make albums. i ended up making this: https://curatorbeats.bandcamp.com/album/k-m-r-t and you can find other related stuff on bandcamp with the kmart tag: https://bandcamp.com/discover/kmart


Fascinating stuff! Downloading your album now...

Do you ever watch the videos made by TechMoan?
He collects loads of old mad obsolete music formats, including many long-play tape machines used for shops/factories (background music systems).
Well worth a look if you're into this stuff. I didn't know there was a 'scene' around it!

Here's a few videos of his, well worth a watch!
At last it’s the first Reditune Background Music System
BMS2600 : The last Philips tape-based Background Music System
The AEI Foreground Music Machine

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Dayvan Cowboy
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Techmoan is peak dad content but I love it.

There is a whole scene with buying old non-prerecorded VHS tapes and cassettes and whatnot and scanning them for lost media. Not usually released things but ephemera, the kind of things that were just made and thrown away like adverts, bumpers, jingles, continuity... absolute time capsules some of these things.

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Dayvan Cowboy
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In hindsight, the Vernal Equinox "Warc" Voice sounds extremely similar to the Warp Voice at the end of Societas.

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I have to say

The Societas X Tape led me to grabbing vinyl copies of Severed Heads' City Slab Horror and Doxa Sinistra's Conveyor Belt. They did not disappoint, I'm really glad to have them in my collection.

Thanks for the great reccs, Boards of Canada!
Verde Hexagon Hashbrown

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Boqurant
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New (and somehow increased) appreciation for SxT now that Inferno's here. Definitely orbiting similar planets
I remember when this was fields

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Just popping into say that in April when the album cover dropped, I put it on my TV and stared at it while listening to SXT and it fit like a glove. Solidified the artistic direction for me. Having now heard Inferno, well, yeah, they had every right to go this direction with the visual side, to say the least.
Verde Hexagon Hashbrown

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Boqurant
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Definitely - the more I (re)listen to SxT the more clear the path between them, esp the last 30mins (and within that, the highlight has to be One Foundation - Dance With Us Lord: a classic earworm and just perfect in tone, mood etc). The full set is all I want to listen to in the mornings.

I initially called Inferno a bit of a beat-tape, and that was definitely wrong, but it does feel a bit like a mixtape. A perfectly sourced and sequenced mixtape of solid-gold rarities that just so happen to be among BOC's finest work.
I remember when this was fields

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