____twoism

Hey twoism!

This topic was inspired by a little snippet from an interview the brothers did regarding TCH:

"We usually imagine our music to have a visual element while we're writing it, so we were picturing this character losing his mind at the campfire and compressing weeks of events into a few hours, in that time-stretching way that acid fucks with your perception,”

This gave me some pause for reflection, as I realized I like to do this when I listen to music in general, BoC often elicits my most vivid and personal ones.

One such example is Olson. When the song starts, I imagine a maroon color and dreams that fade from view as the song continues. The maroon eventually brightens and a horizontal line bisects the image into two haves. As the gap widens, a brilliant light slowly filters in as the song becomes more and more dissonant. When the abrupt change comes, the split in the maroon color widens and disappears, revealing my own bedroom as the piano chords chime in as wonderfully as they usually do. I think it was inspired by the many naps I've taken, as I experience that same phenomenon when sleeping by a window when the sun is up. I have many more that I'm willing to share, that one just stuck out in my mind.

Sorry if this sounds a little unorthodox, I'm new here.

But with this in mind, I'd like to ask you guys, do you let your imagination wander when listening to BoC?
If so, what are some of your most lucid examples?

Also, I've never done any hallucinogenic drugs (not that there's anything wrong with doing or not doing them), I'm talking straight from the noggin here, folks.

First hearing them, I associated colors to what I was listening too, like Smokes Quantity was like a grimy yellow.

Other tracks bring full landscapes and situations to mind, but I'm not sure if the similarity to the composition of other music in films is influencing that.. TH is pretty blatant in that regard.

Interesting, smacks somewhat of synesthesia. But I totally experience that myself too at times, I often imagine falling, colored geometric shapes when listening to Zoetrope for instance.

The titles of the songs themselves tend to color what I imagine as well, it's pretty hard to listen to IABPOITC without imagining the eponymous BPOITC.

As a synesthete, I can tell you that this is exactly right. Almost the entire TH album is brown or amber to me. MHTRTC is warm but dull colors (rust orange, maroon, suede brown, dandelion yellow), Geogaddi is distinctly red and yellow or any fire color really, and TCH is natural and cool colors, like turquoise and planty green. Also, the biggest visual/audio connection that really caught my attention was the first time I heard Alpha and Omega. The first things that came to my mind were distinct geometric shapes and the math and equations relating to them, like this gif: http://cdn.visualnews.com/wp-content/up ... iv_1.5.gif.
Does anyone else visualize in this way? I also have weird ways of describing sounds. Would you agree that the chords at the beginning of Olson are throaty, and Reach for the Dead is dusty and metallic?

Same on the drugs here. Never touched any illegal substance. I did listen to some of TCH once when I was super sick and all Nyquil'd up. Super drowsy and in that half-asleep state the whole time. Does that count?

Wow that's really cool, being a synesthete must add a whole other layer to all of this stuff!
I relate the albums to seasons, like MHTRTC for me is Winter into Spring, Geogaddi is Fall into Winter, TCH is most definitely Summer and TH is the very end of Summer going into Fall.
Heard From the Telegraph Lines makes me imagine an Amberish-Pink that you can see on a partly cloudy day at sunset.
Your way of describing sounds is also quite interesting, I would not have characterized Olson as "throaty" at first listen but I see what you mean.
Turquoise Hexagon Sun is, for me, pretty plinky and metallic as well.

Seasons also work. I agree with you on that, but I would say that the albums are actually the seasons themselves. MHTRTC is spring, TCH is summer, TH is autumn, and Geogaddi is winter. Each opening/closing song is a perfect transition between seasons. Can you imagine Farewell Fire (it's even in the name - the last bonfire/camping trip of the summer) as a kid going to bed on the last day of summer break? Gemini then begins the first day of school. Semena Mertvykh is when the bitter cold and bleak, frosty days begin, in November. Ready Lets Go is the first snow, while Magic Window is the feeling when the last of the snow banks melt. When you look out the window to see the blooms on the trees and the animals coming out of hibernation, Wildlife Analysis plays. Depending on where you are, either the voice in One Very Important Thought is the teacher's last lesson of the year or Happy Cycling is the excitement of riding the bus home on the last day of school, anticipating summer break. Thus, the first day of break and the anticipation of the summer begins with the dawn of the new day and Into the Rainbow Vein.

True, there are some albums I frequently listen to which are assigned to a specific seasons. Bar Geoggadi almost all of BOC music I can listen only during summer and only if there's sunny weather. Geogaddi is an exemption. That album seems to me dry, and grey mostly, evoking a claustrophobic feeling (bar The Beach At Redpoint - the main motive is a hazy massive strip), MHTRTC due to it's synths sounds is almost warm white (Bocuma), yellow/orange (Roygbiv) bringing those colours in some kind of a liquid state. TCH has a bit watery and orange juice associations (OSTRE), or sky blue (A Moment of Clarity). One of my favourite tracks on TH, Telepath is again clear blue and brings associations with a bit tense but peaceful all the way summer evening somewhere around unseen military airport from middle 80's with two Russian su-22 flying. And so on...It's mostly ambient music which give one I think the best experiences. I used to listen to Robert Fripp Soundscapes and see them as a horizontal or three-dimensional clusters of ridged lines of a different colours each depending on a pitch, of course.

i wish i could put something like this into words more clearly, but its impossible


when i am listening to boc. its as though im feeling and seeing the music, not just hearing it. tracks like ataranchronon, under the coke sign, heard from the telegraph lines. a moment of clarity. these types of tracks take me to a place that i cant quite describe. its like that feeling you get when you think about your old high school days or first boyfriend or girlfriend.

its like the music reminds me of something, but its something that can't be put into words.


this video here is a good representation of what i am trying to speak on, its one of those things where you can feel it, but not quite explain it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5RG_motdg

Nostalgia for things that never happened. It's a general central theme of all BoC music, I think.

Those photos that go with Tomorrow's Harvest evoke meandering around post apocalyptic cities. They sort of proposed the images for you but they really do go with the theme of the music.

I love the TH images. I wished I lived close enough to somewhere that looked like that so I could take pictures.

I have had many vivid images over the years, but I can't be arsed to verbalise them at the moment. So I'll just say a few things:

Ready Let's Go has always been intensely RED for me. Fizzy deep red psychedelic mist with tiny specks/drones of white light moving around, which coalesce into geometric patterns (akin to closed eye visuals).

Chromakey Dreamcoat is a blindingly bright yellow landscape with a multicolored spinning sky. And vague happy people.

The ending of Julie and Candy is like a lake with a perfectly still surface and a chaotic underbelly, which is suddenly broken by a pebble, the ripples spreading outwards as we transition into The Smallest Weird Number.

Iced Cooley... Whatever an industrial swimming pool would look like, that's it. A cross between the insane structural interior architecture of westminster station and a waterpark. Dark purplish, echoey. It would be my favourite off twoism if not for Sixtyniner.

The ending of Tears from the Compound Eye (almost typed Tears from the Hexagon Sun there heh), is a tiny place. Cool water flowing into a cave like a whisper from a mossy opening somewhere above, just deep enough underground for the last of the light to gently illuminate it, the whole scene shrinking to the size of a pinhead as the track fades away. Honestly one of the most striking things they've ever put out, puts tears in my eyes half the time, and yet no one ever talks about it here.

I'm tired so forgive any typos.

I've just noticed I am drawn to imagery involving water. Must be my love of Cornish beaches as a kid.

Aerial Boundaries wrote:I've just noticed I am drawn to imagery involving water. Must be my love of Cornish beaches as a kid.

Do you like Drexciya? Tons of water themed music there, although more like images of undersea, futuristic humanoids than lounging by the seaside!

This album has that nostalgic, when you were by the water as a kid feel to it, too:



The cover definitely fits.

Yeah Drexciya is great, very cinematic, but completely different from boc for me, yes underwater bases, deep sea images, imagine Geo's Diving Station and you get what I mean

TontoExpands wrote:Those photos that go with Tomorrow's Harvest evoke meandering around post apocalyptic cities. They sort of proposed the images for you but they really do go with the theme of the music.

BOC understand their music on a level that most other artists do not. They often title their tracks perfectly and select images to accompany them very well. I can't think of any musicians who are better at titling their works, or who appreciate the art of titling more than BOC. BOC's titles are poetry.