Discussion thread for the possible Hooper Bay leak

[HamishUK]

Inverted the label for reference. It does look like it matches the one in the video for sure.

Oh yea, it 100% is the same. Side B seems to have a lot more contrast, though that could be the camcorder.

[mthrndr]

This would be a decent time for MDG to weigh in

[Thad4002]

I'm a firm believer of it to be real at this point.

me too

[burst__of__indigo]

This being filmed on a camcorder aligns. Hauntology.

[bocnissanmaxima]

This being filmed on a camcorder aligns. Hauntology.

Also, he’s likely a 50+ year old guy from rural Scotland (assuming he knew/knows BoC personally and got the record that way). Maybe he just doesn’t care about modern technology or simply doesn’t have anything other than a desktop and a camcorder.


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[burst__of__indigo]

This being filmed on a camcorder aligns. Hauntology.

Also, he’s likely a 50+ year old guy from rural Scotland (assuming he knew/knows BoC personally and got the record that way). Maybe he just doesn’t care about modern technology or simply doesn’t have anything other than a desktop and a camcorder.


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I've thought this too

[funnnnpng]

if he knew boc personally, he would know better than to leak this

[northernlite]

wow, never thought the day would come...

"THEY DO EXIST"

[bocnissanmaxima]

if he knew boc personally, he would know better than to leak this

Maybe he knew then in the 90s, lost touch with them, and somehow found out that the BoC record he thought nothing of for decades is actually quite rare. We make a big deal of Hooper Bay, Play by Numbers, and Acid Memories because we’re BoC fans, but it’s possible this guy is just an acquaintance of BoC from a long time ago and got Hooper Bay as a result of that connection.


I doubt that, if he was a BoC fan, he wouldn’t have realized how rare Hooper Bay is until just now. He must have forgotten that he had the album at all or simply didn’t know how sought after it is by BoC fans.

[mthrndr]

if he knew boc personally, he would know better than to leak this

Maybe he knew then in the 90s, lost touch with them, and somehow found out that the BoC record he thought nothing of for decades is actually quite rare. We make a big deal of Hooper Bay, Play by Numbers, and Acid Memories because we’re BoC fans, but it’s possible this guy is just an acquaintance of BoC from a long time ago and got Hooper Bay as a result of that connection.


I doubt that, if he was a BoC fan, he wouldn’t have realized how rare Hooper Bay is until just now. He must have forgotten that he had the album at all or simply didn’t know how sought after it is by BoC fans.

Yep. As superfans, we forget how niche BoC actually are. Most people have no idea they exist or what they sound like. It's reasonable to assume that friends of M&M from long ago may not have kept up with the scene, and have these 'gifts' stored in an attic or basement somewhere. I had my records packed away for at least 10 years in an attic, and I'm a huge music fan.

[burst__of__indigo]

I recently found a CD-R a high school acquaintance made for me of music he was working on. It was batshit crazy, but the point is I totally forgot it existed, it's probably the only surviving copy. These tunes are 20-25 years old; now he's not BOC or anything but I don't find it hard to believe that someone like this guy was lucky enough to get a copy and then forgot about it, lost touch, etc.

[tvsr]

Maybe it's the gray rainy day outside that's helping, but to me, it feels real.

That same uneasy and ominous atmosphere found in their earlier works seems to be on full display here.

[DILWeed]

I can't check right now, but I swear I remember the flute-y sample bit in Seward Leaf being one of the web loops from the old band site. Then again I know I absolutely want to believe and felt like this had potential when I first saw the Discogs submission and the account had some random obscure Edinburgh tapes in its collection.

[Sherbet Head]

It's hard to tell. Certain aspects certainly sound convincing, but I would need to hear a proper rip to make a fair analysis.

If there's one thing we know, it's that poor video and audio quality is a great way to disguise any potential inauthenticity, which brings me to ask, if this is real, was this really the best and most convenient way for him to capture this in 2023?

His YouTube comment caught my attention...

James Loughton
17 hours ago
Hey everyone, Im heading to sleep now but I could see about posting a full recording if you wanted in the morning but i dont' know if I could hold my camcorder up for that long!!!

I'm probably just being pedantic over his language here, but it seems unlikely that any of this was shot on a camcorder. Camcorder footage has never looked this bad. This looks more like an old phone (pre-smartphone) or an old point-and-shoot digicam that has some 'video mode' tacked on. It's likely a mid-to-late '00s era device of some sort. I can, at the very least, guarantee that this wasn't shot on tape.

The way I see it, there are three outcomes:

1) The record is legit and his story is true.
2) The whole thing is an elaborate hoax devised by someone clued up on their BoC-lore.
3) We're in phase one of the next ARG.

I believe this to be a deliberately bad recording, so at this point, I'd be willing to discount the first option.

Let's see what happens next...

[burst__of__indigo]

If it's fake, I still want this record. If it's real, I still want this record.

Either way, the tracks are stellar and I'd listen to this frequently whether it's old BOC or not.

My hope is it's the start of something...

[Decorah]

It's really hard for me to understand the timing, like did you forget you had an extremely sought after, rare BoC album that ostensibly nobody has ever seen or heard before, in your possession? If so, why upload to youtube in this fashion? Why would the recording be so terrible? If you're a BoC fan, there's no way you just happen to decide to do this now. If you're not a BoC fan, why bother uploading it?

It begs alot of questions. What's wild is how the music sounds so authentic. I've heard alot of fakes in my days as a BoC fan and this one is objectively really close to the sound you'd expect from an early boc album.

I sure as hell hope it's an elaborate ARG, it would make alot more sense.

[Walkingcloud]

I think the record is real and that it was deliberately recorded this way. This guy is savvy enough to make a discogs account and upload camcorder videos to YouTube. I’d be very surprised if he didn’t have a smartphone with much better and more convenient recording and uploading capabilities.

I think this was either uploaded by BOC themselves, or James intentionally uploaded it this way so that there is proof that he owns it, but not a good enough recording so that his record is still exclusive/coveted.

[bocnissanmaxima]

It's really hard for me to understand the timing, like did you forget you had an extremely sought after, rare BoC album that ostensibly nobody has ever seen or heard before, in your possession? If so, why upload to youtube in this fashion? Why would the recording be so terrible? If you're a BoC fan, there's no way you just happen to decide to do this now. If you're not a BoC fan, why bother uploading it?

It begs alot of questions. What's wild is how the music sounds so authentic. I've heard alot of fakes in my days as a BoC fan and this one is objectively really close to the sound you'd expect from an early boc album.

I sure as hell hope it's an elaborate ARG, it would make alot more sense.

Until very recently, my parents had a huge stack of CD’s that they never looked at until they moved to a different house. In that stack was a rare CD produced by a family member that we found very little information about on the internet. It’s obviously not on the same scale as BoC, but it goes to show that if an album isn’t significant to the owner, it could easily be forgotten about.


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[Decorah]

I mean, sure, but if you're ever in close enough proximity to procure something like this, keep it in this good of condition, etc. you are very likely not going to forget it's in your posession. Not saying it's impossible but I am saying the odds are very long....

[Navaru]

I mean, for how much people have harped on how they want to hear this stuff for years and years, this would be the absolute perfect way for them to gift it to us, at nearly bare minimum quality