08. Acts Of Magic

[WATER_CAN-_-]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

[Soul_Slip]

This track is awesome… one of my favorites, just wish it built up into a full piece with percussion etc…

[skunkman]

I think this video is really important. i never would've noticed how well Introit and Acts Of Magic segue into each other, even though they're complete opposites in terms of theme and emotion. Really feels like this is the second "intro" track, inviting us into the darker side of the album.

[kyriakos]

I get Atrax Morgue vibes from that pulsing synth

[DFD21]

Anyone else thinks this reminds them of "Apparatus" but without the film dialogue?

[Jango9]

Anyone else thinks this reminds them of "Apparatus" but without the film dialogue?

Personally I got more "Ataronchronon's evil twin", Apparatus is just a ripped off Amiga demo with some film dialogue over it! Also reminded me a bit of the song "Dawn Of Magic" by Twink, definitely some sort of evil ritual going on here. The bells feel like someone banging a gong or ringing a church spire, almost feels a bit like You Could Feel The Sky but without the music. The buzzing flies in particular are very interesting, implies that there's a bunch of blood and guts lying around that nobody bothered to clean up or something like that. Also I know for a fact that BoC have referenced Lord Of The Flies before (the old "flutes" website loop was sampled from a film adaptation of it) so their use of flies here in conjunction with the themes of that book and the way flies themselves are used in it (i.e. usually flying around a decapitated pig head on a stick) is very interesting.

[Soul_Slip]

To me this sounds like a direct pull from A07 from r35tt. It has that droning distorted guitar/synth shoegaze vibe.

[sowhereareyouliving?]

Aha! check out the parallels between Naraka into Acts vs this section in SxT. Eastern tonal chants devolve into thobbing bass

17 0:31:44 M. S. Subbulakshmi Srimannarayana
18 0:34:00 Esplendor Geométrico Regeneración

https://bocpages.org/wiki/Societas_x_Tape

[rd1994]

I always felt the juxaposition of the flies(?) and the birds was really interesting. Reminds me of the life / death juxtaposition on the main album

[Waterbagel]

this song is precisely the vibe of having your body consumed by The Giant Machine i saw in my last bad trip

[jeannedarme]

Aha! check out the parallels between Naraka into Acts vs this section in SxT. Eastern tonal chants devolve into thobbing bass

17 0:31:44 M. S. Subbulakshmi Srimannarayana
18 0:34:00 Esplendor Geométrico Regeneración

https://bocpages.org/wiki/Societas_x_Tape

Yes! I thought it was very reminiscent of the Esplendor Geométrico track too.

[rogerniner]

I think I found the source of the drone sample. It is from the same video they got the creepy poem from for their listening parties. A Christian documentary about Satansim. Listen to the audio at 5:44


Also, I think the choir stabs are the ones used in Naraka, just pitch shifted and slowed down, and added reverb. I am currently testing this.

[TaoTapeTao]

I think I found the source of the drone sample. It is from the same video they got the creepy poem from for their listening parties. A Christian documentary about Satansim. Listen to the audio at 5:44


Also, I think the choir stabs are the ones used in Naraka, just pitch shifted and slowed down, and added reverb. I am currently testing this.

nice find!

[Mexicola]

Seriously, how did you find this?!?

[rogerniner]

Seriously, how did you find this?!?

Someone on Reddit posted this video from a listening party


And I was trying to find out where the creepy poem came from. Someone else figured out it was that documentary, so yeah, I had to watch it. And when I heard that small bit it just snapped into place. Like "Wait a minute..."

[Mexicola]

Ah, good old fashioned sleuthing. Bravo. Sterling work.

So many of these have been found so quickly I was worried AI was getting involved

[rogerniner]

I can understand that. For us old heads, it would take years before we knew about the samples and hidden bits in the songs, now the hive mind can activate so much quicker to find things.

[Mexicola]

...and yet, somehow, we still don't have that Telepath sample..

[superuser]

Most of it isn’t that deep though. It’s just that YouTube has the vast amount of obscure media archived—particularly the exact kind that BOC loves to reference.

Subtitles are now auto generated and generally quite decent.

Those subtitles are then of course searchable.

That’s probably how the poem was found, and then if they sample audio from the same source then of course it’s going to be scoped out.

I feel like the brothers are none too pleased about how quickly everything gets unearthed though.

[Wildfire]

Seriously, how did you find this?!?

Someone on Reddit posted this video from a listening party


And I was trying to find out where the creepy poem came from. Someone else figured out it was that documentary, so yeah, I had to watch it. And when I heard that small bit it just snapped into place. Like "Wait a minute..."

Great find! Could this drone be the one at the start of Prophecy too I wonder, pitched down and filtered.