04. Age Of Capricorn

[noveltywave]

Thanks for explanations, I understand a bit better now although it is still hard to wrap my head around some of it!

It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album, and I live the aesthetic, surface level sound of when the prayer comes in, the tone of the voice and everything. But then I listen to the actual words and I am like “What the —— is he on about?!”

“You shed your blood for me. To cleanse me.” It sounds so odd to hear. Like, how does these images get into someones head that they believe it so strongly? The blood shed by someone else crucifixtion 2000 years ago will “cleanse” your sins now. Whaaaat.

The juxtaposition with the other two samples are so interesting. We have someone trying to tie Osama Bin Laden to, apparently as Google and this thread tells me, the third antichrist, and then there is a chant in the background about waiting night and day, longing to see, just once, their god, saviour what have you. And then apparantly it is mixed with garbled samples from The Exorcist?

I wonder a few things:

1. Is this just BOC messing around having a joke like on some of the early Old Tunes tracks?

2. Did they try out various different samples on this track over the years until they got one that sounded right (ie. building around aesthetics “hey, this sound cool, yeah I like the sound of this”), or did they have a specific idea in mind and find the samples needed to execute the idea (ie. building around meaning “hmm, i want to make a statement about X, let’s hunt for samples to help express it”), or did they just have a bank of 1000 religious vocal samples and just picked a few at random and played around with them until it was a happy accident?

The U-S Mabus spelling sample deliberately shouts back to The Color Of The Fire, and Telepath, so they thought “hey it’ll be fun to throw in another spelling vocal sample, but this time about the devil!” and they wanted to throw in something from a TV evangelist and this was a sample that just sounded cool…. Or is there a deeper meaning, an intended statement? I am not sure if I can explain what I am getting at clearly.

I’m assuming Capricorn has some deeper meaning but it is beyond me still! Just moving on from Aquarius? (And The Color Of The Fire?)

Why only one brother with the writing credited? Why does it talk about sin and blood and then go directly into Father And Son? Is there a deeper meaning or is it just meant to make us ask questions and get obsessed looking for meaning that isn’t there (like Twin Peaks or something)?? Questions questions!

[Redd Panderson]

2. Did they try out various different samples on this track over the years until they got one that sounded right (ie. building around aesthetics “hey, this sound cool, yeah I like the sound of this”), or did they have a specific idea in mind and find the samples needed to execute the idea (ie. building around meaning “hmm, i want to make a statement about X, let’s hunt for samples to help express it”), or did they just have a bank of 1000 religious vocal samples and just picked a few at random and played around with them until it was a happy accident?

This is the stuff of their 13 years / slow pace of putting our material, I feel. I think they are more or less constantly building songs, changing them, adding and subtracting things, recontextualizing them, etc, with a point B kind of framework in mind, but a point B that is open-ended and malleable to suit its overall needs both inwardly with as its referential material evolves and outwardly with the moment in history it's eventually released in. All that, and their threshold for when a song and an album counts as "finished" is WAY higher than most bands.

It's possible they've had "finished" iterations of lots of this music for a decade or decades and have just waited for the right alignment of track iterations, references/hidden messages, album framework, and time in history. So by the time they put this out, it's got all of a rich text (the music itself), subtext (the referential content between samples, titles, certain compositional choices, probably personal life development, and the overall artistic direction/package), and moment in history.

Putting all those things in conversation with each other and then being willing to work hard on one thing for over a decade before you decide it's ready is going to yield something impactful. It's putting in the work!

[The Other]

It's possible they've had "finished" iterations of lots of this music for a decade or decades and have just waited for the right alignment of track iterations, references/hidden messages, album framework, and time in history. So by the time they put this out, it's got all of a rich text (the music itself), subtext (the referential content between samples, titles, certain compositional choices, probably personal life development, and the overall artistic direction/package), and moment in history.

I have often thought this too. Seems they have countless tracks they have worked on over the years. Given that Inferno really sounds like so many different eras of BoC i think it is highly possible.

On the topic of Age of Capricorn...it has slowly become one of my favorites on Inferno.

[WATER_CAN-_-]

[GeoDose]

Anyone else have an opinion on whether the repeating sound that plays between 0:08 and 0:14 (and then continues throughout the track) is tires scraping on pavement followed by a car crash impact?

[astral deeps]

Anyone else have an opinion on whether the repeating sound that plays between 0:08 and 0:14 (and then continues throughout the track) is tires scraping on pavement followed by a car crash impact?

I mean, it does sound like that, but it also sounds like screams to me. It's panned around too. I can slightly hear, "OH MY GOD, DON'T CLOSE THE DOOR" but again, idk, it also sounds like screaming kids in a home movie. I hear what you're probably referring to as the impact noise, as an exhale. Also, right as those screeching/screaming sounds happen, you can faintly hear the sound of running water, like a creek. I often forget about the weird vocoded "growl" or "panting" type noise that goes in and out of sync with the main chords. Or is it laughing? There is also the sound of clipping, or at least some deep tape saturation, at 0:08 (when everything starts to come in), similar to the how the bass part clips in Into The Magic Land.
Damn, what an insane mashup of sounds. How many voice samples do we possibly have going on in this track, at least six? I also find it so strange that there's such apparent tape hiss at the start of the song, but by the end it's not there. Leads me to believe the piano part is a sample. It's also interesting that almost everything is processed and stretched in some way, except possibly for the "I'm a sinner" part, which just sounds heavily compressed. I think it's my favorite on the record, sort of gives me this same feeling that Transmissiones Ferox gives me, where I just have to play it again. So many other great tracks, but as a more full track while still being drumless, it is just packed to the brim, and deeply emotional.

[steeldancer-x]

Try inverting this tune/reflection sometime. Instead of you praying to God, imagine like God is praying onto you.

"Astrologers believe that an astrological age affects humanity, possibly by influencing the rise and fall of civilizations or cultural tendencies.

Traditionally, Aquarius is associated with:

electricity
computers
flight
democracy
freedom
humanitarianism
idealism
modernization
nervous disorders
rebellion
nonconformity
philanthropy
veracity
perseverance
humanity
irresolution"
...
"Proponents of medieval astrology suggest that the Pisces world where religion is the opiate of the masses will be replaced in the Aquarian age by a world ruled by secretive, power-hungry elites seeking absolute power over others; that knowledge in the Aquarian age will only be valued for its ability to win wars; that knowledge and science will be abused, not industry and trade; and that the Aquarian age will be another dark age in which religion is considered offensive.

Another view suggests that the rise of scientific rationalism, combined with the fall of religious influence, the increasing focus on human rights since the 1780s, the exponential growth of technology, plus the advent of flight and space travel, are evidence of the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

A "wave" theory of the shifting great ages suggests that the age of Aquarius will not arrive on a given date, but is instead emerging in influence over many years, similar to how the tide rises gradually, by small increments, rather than surging forward all at once.
...
According to Jung's interpretation of astrology, the "age of Pisces" began with the birth and death of Christ, associating the ichthys (colloquially known as the "Jesus fish") with the symbol of Pisces; following the "age of Pisces" would be the "age of Aquarius", the spiritually deficient age before the arrival of the Antichrist."

--wikipedia go look it up

[eric_schafer]

Although he is one of the most successful and popular directors of all time, Frank Capra is seldom mentioned as one of Hollywood's great film auteurs. During his peak, as well as in the years that followed, critics referred to his work as simplistic or overly idealistic, and labeled his unique handling of complex social issues as "Capri-corn." The public on the other hand loved his films and came back again and again to witness a triumph of the individual (predicated on the inherent qualities of kindness and caring for others) over corrupt leaders who were dominating an ambivalent society.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/ency ... -1897-1991