Maybe Songs On TH Are Reprises Of Songs From Previous Albums

[ryanhewitt]

So thing's are getting quiet around here, Tomorrow's Harvest has been released for just over 5 months now... and I for one feel a little underwhelmed by the amount of hidden messages that have been uncovered. I suppose, selfishly, I was hoping some code-breaking genius would do the hard work for me and give me some answers and ideas to get excited about.

So in my attempt at code-breaking, I figured considering one of the brothers said this -
"Yes, it's loaded with patterns and messages. There are various tricks embedded throughout the whole body of this album, so it'll be interesting to see whether people pick up on these things... There's actually more use of subliminals on this record than on any previous album we've done, so we're interested to see what people will pick up on."
..it would appear as though we are all missing out on a LOT more messages than have been found.


Previously I've posted about the theory myself and a lot of others have had regarding the palindromic structure. After one of the brothers said this -
"Some things are just simple structural things. For instance, Come To Dust, the second-to-last track, is a musical reprise of Reach for the Dead, which comes in as the second track. There's a palindromic structure centred around the track Collapse in the middle."

Everyone got excited about the idea that the final 8 tracks are reprises of the first 8, while it is clearly confirmed that Come To Dust is a reprise of Reach For The Dead (listen to the chord progression in both), I do not think this theme applies to the other tracks.

Someone brought it to my attention that the last note played in Corsair from Geogaddi as the song fades out seems to align with the first note in Sundown...

In short - Though I'm struggling to find other examples, I feel as though it's possible that some (maybe all) of the songs on Tomorrow's Harvest are reprises of songs from previous albums, who knows, maybe even from future albums.

Thoughts?

[Stickyfingers72]

I think there are old ideas reworked for Tomorrow's Harvest for sure and just maybe corsair and sundown were produced around the same time. But I'm not hearing anything more than that. Old tracks and ideas recycled and made to fit the latest concept. BOC have done this before as do so many other producers.

It's just the same old BOC with regards to TH.

Wish somebody could work that website out though.. Now that intrigues me more.

[nick47]

goddamn cosecha transmissiones is pissing me off. There has to be more with that

And I think it will take us a WHILE to figure out what BoC put into these songs. Honestly, I haven't listened to TH much for the past 2 or 3 months. I needed a break. It was driving me kind of crazy. I know there is all this other stuff there, I get that feeling when I hear it. Eventually it just started to aggravate me because I just didn't "get" it.

Ive re-listened a few times recently and I am liking the album more and more as time progresses.

[Negamuse]

goddamn cosecha transmissiones is pissing me off. There has to be more with that

Honestly? I don't think there is. And most of the stuff you can hear in TH has been mentioned at some point or other. I don't mean this in a bad way so don't take it that way, but honestly I think there's too much expectation from some people of some kind of steganographic miracle with TH that just isn't there. It's a great album with some buried voices here and there, but codes and secret "right" track orders... I keep coming back to that first little voice you hear on Reach For The Dead that just says "listen". You know, put down the code book, lay back and listen to the music and enjoy it for what it is.

[noilednad]

There's patterns on the albums that are, sort of like conceptual reprises? If not strictly musical. Know what I'm sayin?

Like these first four songs seem analogous to me. The wonderous little intro piece, followed by a "regular" song, another short piece, then the one with repetitive drums that go on forever.

Wildlife Analysis -> Eagle In Your Mind -> Color Of The Fire -> Telephasic Workshop
Ready Lets Go -> Music Is Math -> Beware The Friendly Stranger -> Gyroscope
Gemini -> Reach For The Dead -> White Cyclosa -> Jacquard Causeway

It's like the same first steps, of different journeys.

[Perch]

this is hardly a detail worth looking at, but in the same vein of matching up older and current tracks, the slight background chatter in the beginning of "nothing is real" always makes me think immediately of the chatter in the background of "turquoise hexagon sun". Not that it's a tough sort of sound to come by, but it's a.. thing? I don't know, whatever haha

[akrotiri]

Can someone explain to me what all this "musical palindrome" stuff means?

Music is Math is supposed to be one
Collapse is supposed to be one

I don't understand. Does it mean RISING-PLATEAU-FALLING in musical "intensity?

[mouse_bums]

I think it takes time. The more we listen to the whole album the more we might hear things. I'm not too concerned (as in the past) with what might be hidden. I just love the music. I really love TH though and I am not disappointed.

[WeHadNormality]

I dunno. I just like listening and not not letting the search for tricks getting in the way. But this interview with Mark Motherbaugh has made me think more about the way the so-called palindromes might work in TH. Watch from 5:09

He used a melody from the score he wrote for The Royal Tenenbaums flipped around to make a part of the score for The life Aquaic. I never would've known that one came from the other unless I'd seen this interview.

Maybe some of TH's melodies started life as palindromes of melodies from tracks off previous albums?

[ryanhewitt]

Can someone explain to me what all this "musical palindrome" stuff means?

Music is Math is supposed to be one
Collapse is supposed to be one

I don't understand. Does it mean RISING-PLATEAU-FALLING in musical "intensity?

"A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of symbols or elements, whose meaning may be interpreted the same way in either forward or reverse direction.
For example "No 'x' in 'Nixon.'"

(^stolen from wikipedia)

I guess it's kind of like a mirror, which is why some people thought Tomorrow's Harvest was kind of like -

Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, Track 4, Track 5, Track 6, Track 7 || Track 8 || Track 7, Track 6, Track 5, Track 4, Track 3, Track 2, Track 1

[Techboy]

I know what you mean. I kind of imagine it, in context, to... okay, i'm strugglin to use words here

maybe the curve isn't necessarily parabolic, but certainly symmetric. like, you start where you are - there's a story arch which takes you far away - and then brings you back the same route to where you began, except it's totally different.



orrrrrrrrrrrr something.

[seanandcandy]

In short - Though I'm struggling to find other examples, I feel as though it's possible that some (maybe all) of the songs on Tomorrow's Harvest are reprises of songs from previous albums, who knows, maybe even from future albums.

Thoughts?

they said in an interview for this album that nearly none of the album was from old material
end of thread

[Moloch]

They said that at least one song was made from old material if I'm not mistaken.

[w31rd numb3r]

They said that at least one song was made from old material if I'm not mistaken.

They were right in using these "at least" words. For example:

>Even when Skyliner is not old material, the same synth by 1m40 to end Skyliner is used through Reach for the Dead, apparently.

>Cold Earth has the same notes from one of the ATP tracks (44m06s).

>Sick Times has some kind of reworked drum pattern of "P.C.", from A Few Old Tunes.

>New Seeds has some reworked patterns from their Random 35 Track Tape, A14. Yet the same synth is used, apparently.

[seanandcandy]

They said that at least one song was made from old material if I'm not mistaken.

They were right in using these "at least" words. For example:

>Even when Skyliner is not old material, the same synth by 1m40 to end Skyliner is used through Reach for the Dead, apparently.

>Cold Earth has the same notes from one of the ATP tracks (44m06s).

>Sick Times has some kind of reworked drum pattern of "P.C.", from A Few Old Tunes.

>New Seeds has some reworked patterns from their Random 35 Track Tape, A14. Yet the same synth is used, apparently.

same synth =/= old material

[Jonse]

Or maybe it's just not very good at all.

[Opothecary]

Or maybe it's just not very good at all.

I stopped talking about how TCH was not what I hoped it would be within a month of it coming out...

In any case, to be relevant to the thread, I don't really think they thought of these songs as reprises to older songs, but I think they took some ideas from a couple of lesser known songs (Reach for the Dead sort of reminds me of xyz, Cold Earth brings Spiro to mind) and applied them in new ways.

[Jonse]

Or maybe it's just not very good at all.

I stopped talking about how TCH was not what I hoped it would be within a month of it coming out...

In any case, to be relevant to the thread, I don't really think they thought of these songs as reprises to older songs, but I think they took some ideas from a couple of lesser known songs (Reach for the Dead sort of reminds me of xyz, Cold Earth brings Spiro to mind) and applied them in new ways.

That's cool. Can't say the same thing has happened with TH for me because the quality of the album isn't that great in my opinion. I don't believe the reprise thing at all and I can't at all see how Come to Dust is a reprise of Reach for The Dead as it sounds nothing like it. As for tracks like Sundown sounding like Corsair, I feel it's just a derivative sort of thing, like they ran out of ideas.

[PiotrG.]

goddamn cosecha transmissiones is pissing me off. There has to be more with that

I keep coming back to that first little voice you hear on Reach For The Dead that just says "listen". You know, put down the code book, lay back and listen to the music and enjoy it for what it is.

Exactly, as much as I like to analyse music the main theme/topic of TH reminds obscure to me and I really don't care much about it or any hidden messages since my mind always suggests its own mostly abstract associations loosely based on sound-colour-place-aura kind of scheme and any plain story would just destroy it. I sense a really fascinating kind of cold war like feeling in some of the tracks (which was barely outlined by brothers I think) but mostly TH for me are really warm rich colours with a kind desolate atmosphere and fragments of seen/imagined places. "Sundown" is the best example.
But I walked a bit from the main topic here...

[Headphase]

A while ago i discovered that the numbers spoken in Cold Earth possibly could be a code.

I agree though. I have a feeling theres a big secret hiding waiting to be discovered.