17. You Retreat In Time And Space

[Waterbagel]

maybe one of the kids did it

[Den]

I feel this too right now. The second section sounds like the band on the cover of Societas X Tape playing a pastiche (as someone mentioned earlier) of a BOC song live. And it’s one of the less hi-fi sounding songs on the album, which accentuates the mixtape quality of Inferno. I’m just wanting to emphasis that there are aspects of this track - despite its explicit references to their sound - that is unlike anything they’ve ever released before. I’m still perplexed.

It also sounds like one of their older melodies remixed with a funk groove. There is something musically vulnerable and even funny - but where you’re laughing and crying at the same time - about its placement on the album.

[chromaphase]

This is probably my favorite track off the album, but I can't listen to it too much because every time I do, I start to tear up. Songs like that should be saved for very special occasions. It's such an immensely beautiful song, and it has such a classic BoC sound (somewhere between IABPOITC and TCH) that listening to it (and watching the fan made video with the dancing people) took me back to being a young teen discovering the band for the first time again. It's a great feeling listening to your favorite band for the first time again, and I'm grateful that this song was able to do that.

There's definitely an intense melancholy or bittersweetness behind it. It feels like a goodbye. If this is indeed their final album, then this would make an excellent swan song. It's a retrospective of who BoC is at their core and what made them a beloved musical act. It's placement on the album seems very deliberate, almost like a "life review" moment before the heartbeat ends in the next track.

[noveltywave]

It’s amazing how this makes everyone feel so sad, like they really hooked that “end of something” feeling.

Very obviously music library inspired, like something from the Societas X Tape.

[happy]

it reminds me of a hymn from my grandmother's funeral, no doubt for me those chord progressions invoking feelings of mourning are by design

[AuHr]

This is my first song to single out and write about after only hearing the whole album play through twice - once at May 28th retail party and once at home on CD through room speakers. Have listened to Deep Time and Prophecy only 4-5 times each. Savoring this whole release like it's an intoxicant or as if it carries a hex. When that clear, soaring, melodic synth/woodwind-sounding line out of the past first appeared during the listening party it felt like one of the loudest and most centered moments on the album and the vibe in the room was beautiful, awestruck, silent, entering dusk outside. When I played it at home the second time, I'd already read a lot of feedback calling it a fan-friendly message like it was a little too direct or showy or what - emotional? That question mark kind of hovered over my reaction at home - I found it very pleasant but wasn't swept away. Then last night, I sat in my car after work and the radio's weekly electronic show, Soundfounder, (the host guested on NPR music the week of release), was commenting on the honor of talking to a national audience. He spoke of the beauty and lushness of the record and said it was both dark and light. Then he said let's listen to one of the light and pretty moments, this is You Retreat in Time and Space. By this point, I'd opened my sunroof, lowered my windows, was in a post-rainfall early evening light, and cranked the volume up to 26. The song was still so new to me that it's key and cycle in the beginning still took me by surprise. I just love it. I understand why people hear in it something profoundly wracking - like tapping directly into an unforeseen memory or ruminating on love and/or death. I found myself wondering and hoping my girlfriend had his show on the home stereo. She had texted me Are You Listening the night he first played Prophecy, and although I missed her message, I reminded her I was trying to avoid it until release. Before I got home last night the second half delivered waves of tingles through both forearms into my hands. When this many people are all talking about goosebumps, tears, bliss, heartache, loss, solace, ... it is almost hard to overstate what rare air this is in, to practically be "touching" so many people in such um, personal ways. It took me back to hearing EYDIAB the first time and how it's melodies, tones, and resolutions stack and climb and support one another near the end. If I could write an ode to the song on classical guitar, I would learn to play classical guitar + maybe my field recording of a total eclipse (I don't know a lot about music theory, composition, language,or structure but am inspired to start, and I'm old). I still plan to most often hear this album as seventy minutes, session mode.

[Josh]

Yeah, spent enough time with Inferno to know for sure that this is my favorite track. This is the sound of thirteen years of life events -- good and bad -- condensed into five minutes and twenty five seconds.

[Waterbagel]

funny story about this one - i don't have a great relationship with my mother. it's tenuously peaceful, i've done a good bit of therapy, yadda yadda. anyway, i'm taking her to an arena show for her favorite band (some lesser known aughts era butt rock), kind of a mothers day gift. per usual, she spends the whole time talking just all kinds of stuff. doesn't matter if you're listening or not, she's talking. but an olive branch - she does mention that she saw that my wife and i made a little trip out of listening to this new album from the band she knew that i listened to in high school, and she said she decided she'd go find a song of theirs!

wow, ok! and what luck! she picked this one! PHEW! close one

[drvaughan]

Quote this when it makes you cry.

I was just so pumped on adrenaline when this one hit at the listening session. I was beaming.

Last night I did my second playthrough of the album. Headphones, laying on the floor. It hit me much harder. Instant classic.

Just played the album for the third time. Listened on the home stereo while sitting on the couch with my wife. This song broke me this time. I knew it was going to eventually. Overcome with a sense of feeling super grateful that I got to share something like this with someone I love. I am grateful that we all made it to this point and we all got to experience this. In the midst of everything, this feels like a special time I will not ever forget it.

Fucking incredible song. It feels like a gift. It joyfully and tastefully hits so many of the past BoC tropes most of us know and love. It is truly the HOLD MY BEER song on the album.

Corny or cringey? Sure, whatever. I have been waiting 13 years to feel exactly this feeling. It was fucking worth it.

So happy to read something like this about this song. I had a similar experience with it a few days ago.

I first heard the album at an in-store event with my cousin and his wife. My cousin and I got into BoC back between Geogaddi and TCH. Hearing this song in the same record store (they changed locations, but it's the same store...record store of Theseus?) I bought my first BoC album (MHTRtC), not to mention several more after, really felt like a full circle moment. When the second half came on, I immediately thought of "Everything You Do..." and was really looking forward to hearing it in more detail later.

I've gone through the whole album probably 5 times at this point, and several songs have been on repeat outside of the tracklist proper, but this past Friday I had the opportunity to enjoy the album alone with some magic tea. My wife was out of town at a retreat, so I was by myself.

As I went through the album, I kept thinking about this song approaching and the other tracks in relation to it. I knew I would have to "deal" with it when it arrived, and sure enough, I got emotional and teary when it came around.

Something about the opening chords, the feel of them, and that first half - the best way I can describe it is feeling like a convergence of the past and the future, like holding your newborn baby and thinking about your dead father. The song felt like a node or a meeting place of what has happened in our lives and what meaning those experiences will take as they inform our futures. The weight of the dead and the laying down of burdens; reconciliation and coming to terms. The future pulling us away from those who've passed, who are retreating into time and space.

I think this song is the emotional payoff of the album, but it has to be accessed by listening to the album in full. It's the emotions and experiences of the other songs that give this song its power. I felt a lot of genuine emotion in "Age of Capricorn" and "Memory Death," for example, but in a sense those emotions ended up being ingredients that contribute to the fullness of "You Retreat..."

Once "Platonia" was over, I sat there in silence for a bit and then texted my wife the type of thing you text after you've cried alone on the floor from drinking magic tea. I then decided to put this track away for a bit and haven't listened to it since; I think I want to keep it from becoming like overchewed gum.

All this to say that I don't get a cheesy, cringey feel from the track. I don't think anyone's "doing it wrong" if they're not putting it with the rest of the album; I just mean the song seemed to gain a lot of power once the experiences from the previous tracks are loaded into it, similar to how "Corsair" has the feel of wide-eyed, hard won knowledge or insight that comes after a significant psychedelic experience (the preceding events of Geogaddi).

[Waterbagel]

Something about the opening chords, the feel of them, and that first half - the best way I can describe it is feeling like a convergence of the past and the future, like holding your newborn baby and thinking about your dead father.

I think this song is the emotional payoff of the album, but it has to be accessed by listening to the album in full. It's the emotions and experiences of the other songs that give this song its power.

I don't think anyone's "doing it wrong" if they're not putting it with the rest of the album; I just mean the song seemed to gain a lot of power once the experiences from the previous tracks are loaded into it, similar to how "Corsair" has the feel of wide-eyed, hard won knowledge or insight that comes after a significant psychedelic experience (the preceding events of Geogaddi).

this is pretty much 100% how i feel about the track (and Corsair to boot!)

[mechanismj]

So happy to read something like this about this song. I had a similar experience with it a few days ago.

I first heard the album at an in-store event with my cousin and his wife. My cousin and I got into BoC back between Geogaddi and TCH. Hearing this song in the same record store (they changed locations, but it's the same store...record store of Theseus?) I bought my first BoC album (MHTRtC), not to mention several more after, really felt like a full circle moment. When the second half came on, I immediately thought of "Everything You Do..." and was really looking forward to hearing it in more detail later.

I've gone through the whole album probably 5 times at this point, and several songs have been on repeat outside of the tracklist proper, but this past Friday I had the opportunity to enjoy the album alone with some magic tea. My wife was out of town at a retreat, so I was by myself.

As I went through the album, I kept thinking about this song approaching and the other tracks in relation to it. I knew I would have to "deal" with it when it arrived, and sure enough, I got emotional and teary when it came around.

Something about the opening chords, the feel of them, and that first half - the best way I can describe it is feeling like a convergence of the past and the future, like holding your newborn baby and thinking about your dead father. The song felt like a node or a meeting place of what has happened in our lives and what meaning those experiences will take as they inform our futures. The weight of the dead and the laying down of burdens; reconciliation and coming to terms. The future pulling us away from those who've passed, who are retreating into time and space.

I think this song is the emotional payoff of the album, but it has to be accessed by listening to the album in full. It's the emotions and experiences of the other songs that give this song its power. I felt a lot of genuine emotion in "Age of Capricorn" and "Memory Death," for example, but in a sense those emotions ended up being ingredients that contribute to the fullness of "You Retreat..."

Once "Platonia" was over, I sat there in silence for a bit and then texted my wife the type of thing you text after you've cried alone on the floor from drinking magic tea. I then decided to put this track away for a bit and haven't listened to it since; I think I want to keep it from becoming like overchewed gum.

All this to say that I don't get a cheesy, cringey feel from the track. I don't think anyone's "doing it wrong" if they're not putting it with the rest of the album; I just mean the song seemed to gain a lot of power once the experiences from the previous tracks are loaded into it, similar to how "Corsair" has the feel of wide-eyed, hard won knowledge or insight that comes after a significant psychedelic experience (the preceding events of Geogaddi).

LOVE reading your experience, drvaughan! 100% agree with You Retreat having a more powerful impact in the context of the album. I am trying to only listen to it in that way.


Slight change of gears here but, you all hear the She is P drums in there, yeah?

[lumpenprol]

I feel this too right now. The second section sounds like the band on the cover of Societas X Tape playing a pastiche (as someone mentioned earlier) of a BOC song live. And it’s one of the less hi-fi sounding songs on the album, which accentuates the mixtape quality of Inferno. I’m just wanting to emphasis that there are aspects of this track - despite its explicit references to their sound - that is unlike anything they’ve ever released before. I’m still perplexed.

Not that different from, say, "Poppy Seed (Reprise)". And no more-pop-oriented than "Dayvan Cowboy". Sort of a mash-up between Poppy Seed Reprise and 84 Pontiac Dream outro, actually...

That said, I think it'd be interesting to hear without the "topmost" synth melody, the one that sounds like a Sesame Street jingle. I don't think it's needed, but I'd need to hear it without it to be sure...

[Den]

I feel this too right now. The second section sounds like the band on the cover of Societas X Tape playing a pastiche (as someone mentioned earlier) of a BOC song live. And it’s one of the less hi-fi sounding songs on the album, which accentuates the mixtape quality of Inferno. I’m just wanting to emphasis that there are aspects of this track - despite its explicit references to their sound - that is unlike anything they’ve ever released before. I’m still perplexed.

Not that different from, say, "Poppy Seed (Reprise)". And no more-pop-oriented than "Dayvan Cowboy". Sort of a mash-up between Poppy Seed Reprise and 84 Pontiac Dream outro, actually...

Those songs on Campfire have microscopic-level details in a way that You Retreat In Time And Space does not. Again, it sounds like a band playing live in a room to me, including the first section. And it sounds like they recorded it on a four-track compared to other songs on Inferno, which I like.

[lumpenprol]

Fair. I hate it now, look what you've doneeee

[Den]

I’m only trying to emphasize what I think is unique about the song! The melody is transcendent in a meta way, but there’s two minutes of what sounds like a church hymn and then it cuts to an entirely new section that’s happening around a funk groove on guitar. It’s closer to something you’d hear on Societas X Tape than any of their prior albums, until now.

[drvaughan]

LOVE reading your experience, drvaughan! 100% agree with You Retreat having a more powerful impact in the context of the album. I am trying to only listen to it in that way.

Slight change of gears here but, you all hear the She is P drums in there, yeah?

Thanks! Glad it's resonating with some of us here.

I'm not sure I hear the drums. I hear something kinda sorta similar, but I personally can't claim they're the same. Sounds like a similar pattern though (kick/snare/kick...kick kick/snare). Maybe the hi hats and production on AFOT is also doing some work in obscuring it for me. And who knows; they may have tinkered with it enough to repurpose it. If so, it would definitely fit the overall mood and title of the track. What a callback!

Funnily enough, looking at the artwork for AFOT, it says "all live drums by Mike," basically the same credit on Inferno. Which now makes me wonder if Mike is usually the one behind the kit.

Maybe I managed to convince myself. Anyone else feel confident enough to make an affirmative claim?

[Den]

LOVE reading your experience, drvaughan! 100% agree with You Retreat having a more powerful impact in the context of the album. I am trying to only listen to it in that way.

Slight change of gears here but, you all hear the She is P drums in there, yeah?

Thanks! Glad it's resonating with some of us here.

I'm not sure I hear the drums. I hear something kinda sorta similar, but I personally can't claim they're the same. Sounds like a similar pattern though (kick/snare/kick...kick kick/snare). Maybe the hi hats and production on AFOT is also doing some work in obscuring it for me. And who knows; they may have tinkered with it enough to repurpose it. If so, it would definitely fit the overall mood and title of the track. What a callback!

Funnily enough, looking at the artwork for AFOT, it says "all live drums by Mike," basically the same credit on Inferno. Which now makes me wonder if Mike is usually the one behind the kit.

He is for sure. I’m remembering an interview where Marcus refers to him as a great drummer.