Boards of Canada - ATP Track 7 Says "NOATTAKKKK."

[Flory]

As the track did not already sound like it came from hooper bay.
Around the 4:13 time mark

There is literally a sample of somebody saying NOATTAKKKK.

[SamuraiDrifter]

Yep. This observation has been made before and it's a pretty popular theory that this is "Noatak" from Hooper Bay.

I'm like 90%+ sure of it, myself. There's the "Noatak" sample, the children saying "louder" and "see the rainbow" (Hooper Bay was reportedly the beginning of BoC's experimentation with children's voices), and the part around 4:00 where noises that sound a lot like those used in "Circle" appear.

[Flory]

Following the same logic as in the track recording's are off by a margin of a minute or less then spiro could be "Point Hope or Seward Leaf but that's just me.

[luminousdusk]

I really struggle to hear 'Noatak' Unless it's 'In Noatak' Or 'N-oatak' Im sure i can hear four syllables

[Flory]

I really struggle to hear 'Noatak' Unless it's 'In Noatak' Or 'N-oatak' Im sure i can hear four syllables

Try listing to the alternet rip of the track. It's on twoisim somewhere.

[luminousdusk]

Ok will do cheers

[luminousdusk]

I found the link of Terekhovas version and wow it sounds great! Unfortunately still not getting 'Noatak' though.. sounds to me like it's starting with 'L' or 'El' and even has an 'S' in there too. Best I can figure out..which isn't even a word would be 'El-es-eth-op' or 'El-ep-is-oth' but nothing near Noatak. What i hear still has 4 syllables and Noatak obviously has 3 :/ I am really trying to hear Noatak. Maybe it's been processed so much that it's unintelligible or maybe it's reversed or with two samples combined or both.. even a foreign language.. beats me

[SamuraiDrifter]

Maybe try slowing it down and listening to it? It pretty clearly says “Noatak” to me. I don’t hear a fourth syllable.

Are you sure you’re listening to the right part? There are a few vocal samples in the song. The one we’re referring to is at 2:24 in this video, to make sure we’re on the same page. You can slow down the playback speed as well.

[Flory]

Maybe try slowing it down and listening to it? It pretty clearly says “Noatak” to me. I don’t hear a fourth syllable.

Are you sure you’re listening to the right part? There are a few vocal samples in the song. The one we’re referring to is at 2:24 in this video, to make sure we’re on the same page. You can slow down the playback speed as well.

I think the 1st a is being missed as a h.

[luminousdusk]

This is like the tennis ball colour problem.. some see green some see yellow lol
I'll keep listening, I've got the right sample. Might throw it into Audacity tomorrow and see what I get

[Valotonin]

"and the guitar"

Edit: or possibly "Bend the guitar"

Hate to be useless and suggest something completely non-contextual, but I have been looping it with a decent set of headphones and equalizing the eq to put emphasis on that part.

Will make a video, hold on.

[Valotonin]

Tada. I'm not banking on it being "and/bend the guitar" as that is one of many possibilities, but the chances of that vocoded voice saying Noatak are kind of slim in my opinion. I agree that it sounds like it could well be an "El" at the beginning. If I were to translate it literally in another way it would be "El-le guita(*)" (* indicates a wildcard, could be anything as the very end of the word is quite obscured)

*shamelessly toots own horn* I am pretty good at this to be honest, I found that it was likely "marcus singing mike is singing marcus singing mike is singing marcus singing vocoder marcus singing mike is singing" on the other live track with heavy use of it, and I was the first to find that it was "willingness and comfort there" in the Nothing is Real voice segment.

[luminousdusk]

Metal guitar? I'm Definately hearing guitar now lol maybe keytar?

Hell guitar. That's my final offer
Ok last last offer, pedal guitar

[Omikron]

Whether the voice is actually saying Noatak is irrelevant. It sounds close enough to Noatak that it would be too coincidental for the same band to have a different, unheard track named Noatak. BOC must have heard it as Noatak and named the track after it, even if it is really saying something about guitars instead.

[Opothecary]

To me this is some Occams Razor stuff if you have the facts, there's no need to overthink it - the Alaska motif of the Hooper Bay track list and the numerous times that they sampled the Alaskan episode of Sesame Street (shot in Noatak) early on in their career tells me the sample is more than likely saying Noatak.

The question to me is more whether or not they had the ability to put together the same song that we know back in 1994...maybe?

[luminousdusk]

With all due respect, Even if the brothers themselves told me that sample said Noatak i still wouldn't believe it lol

[15Dreams]

The question to me is more whether or not they had the ability to put together the same song that we know back in 1994...maybe?

If they could make Buckie High in 1994 I wouldn't write that track off as too complex. Plus who's to say they didn't rework/extend it for the live set?

[Negamuse]

With all due respect, Even if the brothers themselves told me that sample said Noatak i still wouldn't believe it lol

See I think it does sound like it says Noatak, but I don't think that means it necessarily IS Noatak. Think about how the track that SAYS "An Eagle in Your Mind" is not the track CALLED "An Eagle In Your Mind"

[Flory]

Tada. I'm not banking on it being "and/bend the guitar" as that is one of many possibilities, but the chances of that vocoded voice saying Noatak are kind of slim in my opinion. I agree that it sounds like it could well be an "El" at the beginning. If I were to translate it literally in another way it would be "El-le guita(*)" (* indicates a wildcard, could be anything as the very end of the word is quite obscured)

*shamelessly toots own horn* I am pretty good at this to be honest, I found that it was likely "marcus singing mike is singing marcus singing mike is singing marcus singing vocoder marcus singing mike is singing" on the other live track with heavy use of it, and I was the first to find that it was "willingness and comfort there" in the Nothing is Real voice segment.

Try the alternate rip of the track. The B is definitely a N.

[Valotonin]

Okay, so we have a lot of people here that might maybe have confirmation bias because the track has been unofficially known as Noatak for so long. Using any decent set of headphones, one can hear that it doesn't have the same number of syllables or structure as the word in question. Even if the first letter happened to be N (by the way, the loop I used was from the remaster/alternate rip that you are talking about, I just adjusted the EQ myself to make the voice more audible) the rest of the word most certainly doesn't sound akin to "oatak" in any way from my perspective. I could be entirely wrong, but it just seems like a slim possibility. I am not saying that the track isn't indeed Noatak, but the sample therein really honestly doesn't sound at all like it is saying it.

MDG MDG where art thou?

Edit: The closest to Noatak I could potentially see it getting if indeed the B at the beginning could be a hard N would be "En-uh-itahr", and that takes quite a lot of my having to tell myself that it is saying something close to Noatak in order to not hear anything else.