You thought the viral campaign behind Random Access Memories was intricate? Well, electronic duo Boards Of Canada have been trumping Daft Punk of late, eking out details of some kind of upcoming release or project through a series of elaborate clues, including one-off record releases, commercials and hidden codes. Epic!
It all started with a mystery 12″ that one lucky fan found on Record Store Day at Other Music in New York. It featured a 20-second snippet of music from the Scottish brothers, which you can take a listen to below. The cover of the record features this text: —— / —— / —— / XXXXXX / —— / —— and the audio features the numbers ‘936557’ recited in a robotic voice, which led fans to believe this would be one of 6 releases which, when combined, would solve a puzzle.
A second release turned up in London with the same snippet of music but with different numbers – ‘717228’ (below). Then two more snippets with number sequences were aired via radio, firstly on Zane Lowe‘s BBC Radio 1 show, then as a ‘mystery’ track on NPR‘s All Songs Considered. That’s four sequences of numbers in total, with the NPR code unable to be put in sequence.
More pieces of the puzzle were unearthed by users of the BoC unofficial fan message board, Twoism. This is where it gets hectic – stay with us.
A banner was altered on the Twoism board to contain a static pattern similar to one featured in one of the unearthed videos (below). By opening the image in a text-editing program, fans discovered links to Soundcloud (here and here), revealing some new diagrams and two pieces of music buried beneath static, both titled ∑:. When played together, the tracks sound like the previous snippets and reveal the number ‘628315’, and were revealed to fit the sequence like so: —— / 628315 / 717228 / 936557 / —— / 519225.
When uploaded to a text editor, the links also revealed this:
RIFFX WAVEfmt bextZ RPP:/Volumes/graphics/Boc Graphics/Record Sleeves/Cosecha Teaser/TH Cosecha Numbers Station Trail/Cosecha Clue 2 for fans/Cosecha Clue 2 for fans.RPP REAPER lumes/graphics/Boc Graphi 2013-04-2522-10-33 junkJ data `#Y
…launching speculation that Cosecha is the name of a new album from BoC.
The code revealed during the NPR show, ‘699742’, had not been placed in the sequence… until a 90-second ad aired on Cartoon Network yesterday, delivering those same numbers and showing us that they belong at the start of the sequence, which is now: 699742 / 628315 / 717228 / 936557 / —— / 519225.
UPDATE: The code has been cracked and a new Boards Of Canada album revealed. Full details here.
Whew. Got your head around that? We here at Music Feeds need a good lie-down after pulling that all together. Boards Of Canada fans have been waiting patiently since 2006’s Trans Canada Highway EP for an official studio release from Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, and it’s understandable that Boards Of Canada are up for some games, and also that there would be a certain section of the population willing to go to such lengths to uncover new material from the two.
We’re half expecting a vision of Pharrell Williams to appear, flanked by Nile Rodgers, wearing a glittery suit and handing us the last 6-digit piece of the puzzle. As to what that piece will reveal, only time will tell. Stay tuned!
Watch: Boards Of Canada Record Store Day 20 Second Snippet #1
Watch: Boards Of Canada Record Store Day 20 Second Snippet #2
http://youtu.be/lub89YirmC4
Banner from Boards Of Canada Twoism message board
Watch: Boards Of Canada Cartoon Network ad
