05. Telepath (1:32)

[bingo wings]

it is their voices. it's ring modulation, probably some sort of formant shifting as well but that could just be a result of the ring modulation. my guess it's that it's some old analog ring modulator they found, (in some interview, i cant remember which one, they mention driving several hours away to pick up some obscure piece of equipment. maybe it's that) they were playing around with it and recording it and that sample made it. he says things like "this is quite pleasant", and "play it back and see what it sounds like", but im just about 99% sure it's their own voices heavily filtered through this ring mod and formant modulation. I've been able to almost completely replicate this effect simply by formant shifting several octaves down and using LFO-modulated ring mod in ableton live. it's almost disappointingly simple.

it is definitely not subliminal, historical, or a secret message

It doesn't sound like a Scottish accent at all though, it sounds more like the type of English accent from old broadcasts. And I'm sure they said the old piece of gear they travelled to pick up is a one second sample on Cold Earth.

[rodox_head]

it is their voices. it's ring modulation, probably some sort of formant shifting as well but that could just be a result of the ring modulation. my guess it's that it's some old analog ring modulator they found, (in some interview, i cant remember which one, they mention driving several hours away to pick up some obscure piece of equipment. maybe it's that) they were playing around with it and recording it and that sample made it. he says things like "this is quite pleasant", and "play it back and see what it sounds like", but im just about 99% sure it's their own voices heavily filtered through this ring mod and formant modulation. I've been able to almost completely replicate this effect simply by formant shifting several octaves down and using LFO-modulated ring mod in ableton live. it's almost disappointingly simple.

it is definitely not subliminal, historical, or a secret message

It doesn't sound like a Scottish accent at all though, it sounds more like the type of English accent from old broadcasts. And I'm sure they said the old piece of gear they travelled to pick up is a one second sample on Cold Earth.

To be fair, their accents aren't that thick.

[steeldancer-x]

To be fair, their accents aren't that thick.

I want to go to the pub with them so bad

[desfax]

it is their voices. it's ring modulation, probably some sort of formant shifting as well but that could just be a result of the ring modulation. my guess it's that it's some old analog ring modulator they found, (in some interview, i cant remember which one, they mention driving several hours away to pick up some obscure piece of equipment. maybe it's that) they were playing around with it and recording it and that sample made it. he says things like "this is quite pleasant", and "play it back and see what it sounds like", but im just about 99% sure it's their own voices heavily filtered through this ring mod and formant modulation. I've been able to almost completely replicate this effect simply by formant shifting several octaves down and using LFO-modulated ring mod in ableton live. it's almost disappointingly simple.

it is definitely not subliminal, historical, or a secret message

It doesn't sound like a Scottish accent at all though, it sounds more like the type of English accent from old broadcasts. And I'm sure they said the old piece of gear they travelled to pick up is a one second sample on Cold Earth.

To be fair, their accents aren't that thick.

exactly, its not like a thick glaswegian accent. its super mild. I thought of this video exactly when i was thinking about it when i first heard telepath. that, coupled with the fact that they create samples from scratch, meant to sound like "old" samples, leads me to believe its more likely they made this, than not. They have said in multiple interviews that they rarely sample other sources and instead create their own samples from scratch with the intend of misleading the listener into hearing something that was sampled from something much older than it actually is

[IronMark]

They've said that but honestly I think they say a lot of things in interviews just for a laugh.

In the last couple of years, a huge number of BOC samples have been discovered and they're pretty much all from obscure TV shows, movies, spoken word albums etc. I'm not saying they've never used recordings of themselves or friends/family in songs but there are a fair number of samples people have speculated to be personal recordings that have turned out to be anything but.

I've listened to the Telepath male voice isolated with headphones many times and it's a man with an English accent who sounds to be 50-70 years old and in the background there is a second man with a German accent. BOC may not have thick accents but they are unmistakably Scottish, you hear them speak and there is 0% ambiguity over where their accents are from. I can never be 100% but I would bet large amounts of money on the voices in Telepath not being them.

Edited to add - they've also mentioned in numerous interviews that there's a sense of humour that runs through their work that people don't seem to pick up on. I think a big part of that is winding up interviewers because they know fans will take it super seriously, they play on this mystique a bit to wind up interviewers and fans. I think when they talk about taking samples and recreating them themselves, they're talking about musical samples, not voices. I personally don't believe any of the speech samples they insert in their songs are from third party sources recreated by BOC.

[bingo wings]

it is their voices. it's ring modulation, probably some sort of formant shifting as well but that could just be a result of the ring modulation. my guess it's that it's some old analog ring modulator they found, (in some interview, i cant remember which one, they mention driving several hours away to pick up some obscure piece of equipment. maybe it's that) they were playing around with it and recording it and that sample made it. he says things like "this is quite pleasant", and "play it back and see what it sounds like", but im just about 99% sure it's their own voices heavily filtered through this ring mod and formant modulation. I've been able to almost completely replicate this effect simply by formant shifting several octaves down and using LFO-modulated ring mod in ableton live. it's almost disappointingly simple.

it is definitely not subliminal, historical, or a secret message

It doesn't sound like a Scottish accent at all though, it sounds more like the type of English accent from old broadcasts. And I'm sure they said the old piece of gear they travelled to pick up is a one second sample on Cold Earth.

To be fair, their accents aren't that thick.

That's true, but there are distinct phonological differences between the way they speak in the Peel Session interview and the voice in Telepath. The vowel sounds in Telepath are a giveaway, They come from someone using Received Pronunciation and are longer than vowel sounds used by us Scots, whether we have "thick" accents or not.

[desfax]

FINE YOU WIN!

[bingo wings]

FINE YOU WIN!

Only if BOC aren't excellent at mimicking English accents.

[steeldancer-x]

I mean they kind of are..... they did bounce between Europe and Canada growing up

[RWRpcmdoaXJl]

The voice at the end (Could I get the one voice? Nervous? Don't be nervous) sounds distinctly like a cork accent to me

[Quadrivium]

Still a mystery after all these years! Would love to source this sample. Such mystique.

[rd1994]

I am honestly too lazy to search this topic but to me the main counting voice always sounded like John Peel to me. (which is funny in the sense that thanks to John Peel its the only time we heard their voices)

[Scories]

Thought it was processed station numbers.

[Wildfire]

I am honestly too lazy to search this topic but to me the main counting voice always sounded like John Peel to me. (which is funny in the sense that thanks to John Peel its the only time we heard their voices)

It's certainly an English accent, anyone that thinks that is even remotely Scottish is deef (as we say in Scotland).

[Mexicola]

Ain't Peel, sadly. He had a soft Merseyside accent. Telepath is more received English. The sentence 'This is quite close'. The word close is pure BBC. Think Sir David Attenborough, Sir Patrick Moore etc.

[The Other]

I am always intrigued from where they pull their samples. I also think it is sometimes best to not know the source...leaves much more to mystery and lets the imagination run wild. Crazy after all this time this one hasn't been sourced.

[Mexicola]

I'll wager my mortgage it's from some long forgotten TV show or documentary. I'm thinking something like Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World etc.

[Omikron]

I'll wager my mortgage it's from some long forgotten TV show or documentary. I'm thinking something like Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World etc.

I’ve always imagined it to be from an old recording studio tape that would have otherwise been discarded or recorded over. It sounds like they’re rehearsing or preparing for a radio broadcast while setting up and testing the equipment.

[egbdf]

Telepath was definitely the most memorable moment of the first listen for me, aside from the ident thing at the beginning of Gemini

[Wildfire]

I'll wager my mortgage it's from some long forgotten TV show or documentary. I'm thinking something like Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World etc.

The voice does actually sound very Arthur C Clarke.