Sick Times for viral marketing
Quite frankly, the viral marketing campaign which told the world of Boards Of Canada’s forthcoming studio album (their first in eight years) was a stroke of engaging genius.
I didn’t even know Record Store Day was a thing until I learned that someone had picked up an untitled Boards Of Canada LP from Other Records in New York City. The only information the cover of said vinyl offered was a cryptic string of text which read ——/——/——/XXXXXX/——/——
When the record was played, it contained just a few seconds of audio of a robotic voice reading out six numbers, numbers station style. The BoC fan community quickly galvanised online - united in as much intrigue as there was excitement.
The question as to whether this New York record store customer was legit was answered when a member of the Twoism.org forums phoned Other Music and was told by the clerk there that a representative from Warp Records had indeed dropped the vinyl off - shit was on.
It was quickly established that, as expected, we were to be in for six different sets of six numbers filling in the blanks represented by the ——/s on the record sleeve. Speculation that six different vinyls planted around the world would contain the six sets of numbers was quickly disspelled when a live version of BoC’s ‘Julie And Candy’ was uploaded to Youtube. This was a soundboard recording of the song, something that is not publicly available either commercially or even through internet leaks. This had obviously been uploaded by an official source - what’s more is that the video contained an annotation at 4:19 (thought to be linked to the fact that the first record was discovered on the 19th of April - let’s face it, BoC aren’t averse to American customs. Music isn’t 'maths’ afterall) which read ——/——/——/——/——/——/. A short while later another annotation was added reading 'ONE GOT FAT’ and only flashing up for a split second.
One Got Fat, of course, is a famed American public information film, well known among BoC fans for being used as the backdrop for a well known fan-made video for BoC’s 'Everything You Do Is A Balloon’. Within seconds a chain had started. The top comment on the EYDIAB video contained a link to a video called nuevas semillas (Spanish for 'new seeds’) which itself contained a comment linking to a video called simply 'csch’ - this video had been uploaded by a user called HellInterface (a known alternative name for the Sandison Brothers’ musical projects) this video contained the second set of numbers. Again preceeded by a musical jingle that was quintessentially-BoC and six numbers read out in the same robotic voice - we had code number two.
As a man approaching 30 years of age, it had been a good 15 years almost since I had spent any significant time in a chatroom but fuck me if I wasn’t absolutely hooked to the IRC chat that had sprung up in the midst of all of this BoC-inspired melodrama. Five days straight I was logged into that thing - I kept it open in a tab when I was AFK or out of the house just so that I could have a quick look every now and then to see if I had missed anything, or ping a message out asking people if they could summarise what, if anything, had happened since I had been away. I should have grown out of all of this by now - how could a couple of Pentland-Hill-dwelling electro musicians reduce me to this? I was past caring by this point. This whole thing was unmitigated fucking genius.
I don’t think many BoC fans are the types to listen to Zane Lowe’s show on Radio 1. I’d certainly never given the asinine tosser the time of day. I suppose, if I ever wanted to know what he was playing on any given show, I could just follow @NowOnRadio1 Twitter feed which offers such information without the need to tune in. That’s exactly what I should have been doing the day Twitter reported that Zane Lowe was playing a track called ——/——/——/——/——/XXXXXX from Warp Records. I don’t know what was more annoying, the fact that not a single BoC fan had heard the track, which was surely the sixth set of numbers or the fact that I had to explain to so many outside of the UK in the IRC chat that all of the BBC’s radio content could be listened to again on Iplayer and that we would soon be able to listen to Zane’s show and skip through the dross mire to what we wanted to hear. As it turned out it didn’t even come to that - someone on Twoism with h4x0r skills was able to get the audio before it went up on Iplayer. Iplayer did indeed confirm shortly thereafter what we already knew. 3 codes in 3 days eh? We still didn’t even know that this was building up to but a new album seemed to be where the smart money was.
Things then got a tad confusing when, later that same night a fourth code was transmitted on another radio show. This time on the USA’s National Public Radio. The confusion lay with the fact that this code didn’t come with an obvious indicator as to which blank set of dashes it fitted into. The first code had its position marked on the record sleeve. The second code had flashed up its position just before the video ended and the third code gave its position away as its title on the website for Zane Lowe’s tracklisting. The fourth code gave no such hint - deliberate? I’m still unsure.
The fifth code came after a day of inactivity. Having become accustomed to such rapid fire revelations and the fun of trying to decipher them that it entailed, having to wait a whole day for more info seemed cruel. Nonetheless, it was worth the wait. Back when the second code was revealed, in addition to the Julie And Candy video helping us out with the 'ONE GOT FAT’ annotation, the EYDIAB video had also appeared at the top of the playlist on the official Boards Of Canada Youtube channel. What led us to the fifth code started when someone noticed that the song Twoism had now replaced it - Twoism being the song that the Twoism.org fan forum takes its name from - coincidence? Wait, the banner at the top of the forum has changed. Holy mother of shit, the code embedded within the GIF banner at the top of the forum contains a link to a Soundcloud page, can this really be happening? Oh dear god the Soundcloud page contains two audio files that are out of phase with each other. Maybe we should play them at the same time - JACKPOT! Five codes. One more to go. I forget how at this point but this clue also came with an indication of where it went in the sequence. I’ve got a feeling the placement of the code was also in the GIF banner but I’m not absolutely sure. I could always just look it up on Bocpages but I’m trying to write this entirely from what I remember about it.
Aaaaanyway…
At this point we were now sitting with 5/6 codes, and no clue as to where the fourth one placed. We were told that the fourth code went in the first slot. We found this out after Rough Trade East in London Tweeted a picture of a Warp logo displayed prominently in a shop window opposite them - what followed was a projection of various scenes of a Nuclear ghost town in said window and reports that the now-familiar jingle and numbers sequence could be heard from inside the shop. Of course, excitement had built to fever pitch as we suspected this would be the final code reveal but sketchy reports of the numbers being read out from inside the shop and their similarity to the fourth code (from NPR) soon turned our optimism into the realisation that this was merely a confirmation of the placement of the NPR code. All doubt was removed the next day when an Adult Swim bump revealed that indeed the NPR code went in the first slot. One more code to go and we knew exactly where to put it when it came.
It came in the form of BoC’s official website suddenly redirecting to a new URL, namely cosecha-transmisiones.com with a cryptic message that read:
“Welcome to OpenVMS (™) VAX Operating System, Version v7.7 on node CAL3
Last interactive login on Thursday, 22-AUG-1996 02:57
Username: System
Password:”
This had to be it, didn’t it? All of the numbers together had to be the password - it was now just a question of finding the final set of six numbers. It should be pointed out that Cosecha was already an intriguing word among the BoC fans following this mystery. The information from the Soundcloud audio files that unravelled the fourth code contained the phrase “Cosecha Numbers Trail” - Cosecha being the Spanish word for 'harvest’ - remember too that the name of the video that heralded the second code was called 'csch’ - there was already a healthy speculation that Cosecha was the name of the new BoC album widely believed to be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of this particular bow of roygbiv.
I really don’t have enough knowledge to tell you how but someone infinitely more tech savvy that I’ll ever be cracked something in the source code for the cosecha-transmisiones.com page which led to an mp3 file and there it was - the sixth and final code. The final piece of the puzzle. The password was, as suspected, the number sequence in its entirety and when entered, we were treated to an eerie and, once again, quintessentially-BoC video full of static and eerie sounds culminating with the jizz moment for Bocers the world over.
JUNE 10 2013
BOARDS OF CANADA - TOMORROW’s HARVEST.
When those words flashed up on my screen, it was about the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religious experience. It’s not just how jealous I am of how fucking amazing Boards Of Canada are at fucking EVERYTHING they do, it’s the way they’ve shown that those of us who dream of being professional musicians but don’t see life on the road or doing the promotions circuit as something we could cope with with our souls intact can, in fact, make a living from it if we’re good enough. This, as much as their incredible music, speaks to the very heart of my love for this band. Everyone who may be inclined to buy Tomorrow’s Harvest knows that its release is imminent, this has been picked up by national press, internet forums, blogs, record shops, radio stations and TV shows and all of this has been done without the Sandisons appearing on the sofa of the fucking One Show talking to some vacuous mind-cripple and pretending to offer their opinion on some banal pseudo-news story presented by a z-lister trying to recapture their former glory. I’m aware that this is coming across like hopeless idealism and I may look back in years to come and cringe at my own levels of sycophantism, but for now I believe in the Sandisons and their approach to making a living in the music industry - I’ve dreamed of being a professional musician since I was 7 years old and the way they do it is the way I’ve always dreamed of doing it. Take note, this is how to engage your fanbase and to raise awareness and make a bit of money from your music without prostituting yourself. It’s creative, it’s the best of both worlds and although I’m a relative newcomer to BoC’s music, I already know that it is, as I’ve said already, quintessentially-BoC.
Roll on the 10th of June.
