Most Complex BoC song

[Headphase]

Oscar see through red eye

There are many drum patterns and hundreds of effects used.

[LeoHmr]

I'll join in and say Telephasic Workshop is (in a way, by far considering how brilliantly arranged and executed it is) the most complex track they have produced. I'm too tired to go into details.

[Taint3dBulge]

Smokes Quantity. If you listen closely to the background, its whipping and whirling and all over the place very awesome.. I love listen to that during a thunderstorm, while in the woods in a tent in the middle of no where all by myself.




Skyliner mind numbing too..

Satellite Anthem Icarus has lots of weird snippets.

[Twoist]

It's got to be Seven Forty Seven or Peacock Tail.

[realspiel]

It's got to be Seven Forty Seven or Peacock Tail.

I agree and I would also add Satellite Anthem Icarus in there, the production on that is immense especially at the end with all the compression and delays

[PorridgeGun]

You Could Feel the Sky

[In_The_Annexe]

XYZ,
Aquarius,
You Could Feel the Sky,
Music is Math
Pete Standing Alone

those ones destroy any others.

[seanandcandy]

Eagle In Your Mind anybody? the cut up vocals for drums
thats gotta take some time

[In_The_Annexe]

^^^ I knew I was forgetting something. Yes, indeed.

[thepastinsidepressant]

hmm i'll have to come back to this, i need to go away now and calculate my answers on my jupiter jibbily jubbly 8

[breadmaker]

Here's a thread that I haven't seen posted yet. What song does it sound like it took BOC the longest time to write and record?

I'm convinced that it must have been Telephasic Workshop. I am always stunned when I hear the vocal manipulation come in at the end, perfectly timed and in rhythm in some way that I can't even count. Maybe it's something really simple that I don't really get, but to my ears it sounds like it must have taken weeks to get all that to sound right.

i first heard that vocal cut-up technique in brian eno & david byrne's "moonlight in glory" and then later in the "bass line" remix of depeche mode's "enjoy the silence." so by the time "telephasic workshop" came along, it wasn't really groundbreaking, but in boc's defense their use of the technique is the best.

i'll add my vote for "oscar see through red eye" but also "pete standing alone," in particular the middle bit which floors me every time.

[rainier]

It's more than just the cut up vox in TW tor me though. There's the crazy internal rhythm that gets created with all the elements coming together that really does it for me.

[Elexen]

It's got to be Seven Forty Seven or Peacock Tail.

I agree and I would also add Satellite Anthem Icarus in there, the production on that is immense especially at the end with all the compression and delays

I'd have to agree with both of these quotes. As an artist myself, I find that it's not always the amount of drum tracks and choppy edits that take lots of time. Mass amounts of time are spent in executing proper layering with multiple tracks and effects so that they all blend well and make a wall of sound while still maintaining their individual identity. Having said that, I believe everything BoC has ever done was time well spent. BUT knowing that they worked with, not only all types of synth on The Campfire Headphase, they also used a multitude of guitars, and that makes that album, IMO, the most complicated. Getting multiple, different and perfect guitar tones to blend nicely with all the synths and samples is no simple task. Layering, mixing and editing all of that must have been an intense monster of a project. I'd think that any of the main songs on THC would have taken the longest. But all in all, that's just my opinion and only BoC know the real answer

[rainier]

The layers on TCH are mindblowing to me. And not about complexity per se, but I always thought Tears from the Compound Eye was their master stroke of the use of degraded sound. It just like, barely exists anymore, like it's about to completely fall apart.

[Keeoaddi]

Telephasic Workshop for sure. I think it's probably their greatest achievement as a piece of music. There are complexities in different ways on other tracks though, I imagine something like Everything You Do Is A Balloon has gone through a hell of a lot of processing and tape saturation.

[Elexen]

The layers on TCH are mindblowing to me. And not about complexity per se, but I always thought Tears from the Compound Eye was their master stroke of the use of degraded sound. It just like, barely exists anymore, like it's about to completely fall apart.

I feel that same way about Sherbet Head. Probably their most degraded while still retaining it's melody. Beautiful.

[WeHadNormality]

Oscar See Though Red Eye, Stixtyten, or Pete Standing Alone.

[tiny sparrow]

Definately An Eagle In Your Mind and Telephasic Workshop for sure. The vocal chops get me every time. And Seven Forty Seven. Being the first track from BoC I had heard, it blew me away and I didn't realize until that time how powerful instrumental electronic music could be.

[AleCresta]

in my opinion is oscar see through red eye...or maybe pete standing alone, the part in the middle of the song is just crazy!

[Negamuse]

I mean we don't really know their process(es) so it's hard to judge. But OSTRE has all those individual parts which all sound like they were made individually and stitched together.

Of the stuff not mentioned Julie and Candy needs a heads up for the time and skill in treating those recorders. Back and forth over generations of tape, interwoven back into the recording to play off each other. Stuff run at different speeds to form counterpoint to the main melody. That shit must've taken TIME.

Layering... people have mentioned some good ones. I'm gonna guess that of all things Dayvan Cowboy took some time to do, for all it sounds simple it's really not. Try and reproduce that first guitar sound exactly; it's damn near impossible because of how it's been treated and the wierd delay that's not even a straight cross delay. The swooshing sounds all the way through the first half that ends when the sunny guitars come in, it's a huge delay tail warped out of all recognition and played in reverse. But it seems to be made from a whole part of the track that you never even hear. Also the drums at the end, which are complicated enough anyway, but they cut up the loop with more delay that's perfectly done... seriously, there's a lot of work in that track.

And Reach for the Dead, actually. The layering's so good by now, it's hard to tell what's coming from what. But like, at the beginning, the drones, so rich. When the melody kicks in it sounds like it's coming at you from miles away, but it has these high pitched bits that sound like they might be feedback howling around... till they step down a couple of notes and no, it's another layer of strings. And the tune has all these layers you don't pick up on the first listen, the chopped up stuff that comes bubbling up at 3:10 ish, the little halo on the main arpeggio after it's been round a few times, that part at the beginning that's played on just fading static... so much going on just under the surface.

The drums, some people have said "oh the drums are simple" but, really? Cos with all those skitter-fills and little bits its never the same from one bar to the next, and when you try and map them out, you can hear most of that's on individual layers too, some at different speeds, some treated differently. I don't even know how you write a drum part that way that still makes sense together. How do you write the bitcrushed stuff at the end?

Oh you know, :words: . But there's so much of what they do that when you look at it you see all the work that's gone into it.