Revision as of 22:59, 15 August 2026

"Prophecy At 1420 MHz" is the second track on Boards of Canada's fifth studio album, Inferno. It was released alongside "Introit" on May 7th, 2026, as the album's lead single.

Comments

• 1420 MHz is the emission frequency of the spin-flip transition of the ground state of neutral, solitary hydrogen atoms, the most commonly-occurring element in the universe. This frequency is part of a "protected spectrum", reserved for astronomical/extraterrestrial research; terrestrial transmissions on this frequency are forbidden. The frequency is often mentioned in the context of the "Wow! signal", an unexplained signal (with this frequency) that was detected on August 15th, 1977.^[1]
• The guitar sound in this track is reminiscent of the sound that can be heard in the background of "Oscar See Through Red Eye".
• In the official music video for the song, during the “following program” screen, the bottom reads “© MBI MCMLXXIX”, which MBI is an acronym for the Moody Bible Institute, which had previously been referenced in the VHS Tape Mailings earlier that year.

Music Video References

• In the video at 2:04, The rose church window comes from the Chartres Cathedral, a Catholic Church located in Chartres France.
• The man appearing at 1:31 seems to be American cult leader and mass murder Jim Jones, who was known for founding and leading the “People’s Temple” and orchestrating a mass murder-suicide that resulted in the deaths of over 900 people.
• The spiral that appears at 2:48 may be an Archimedean Spiral, named after the Greek mathematician Archimedes, is a mathematical curve where the distance between successive turning loops remain completely constant, it is defined in polar coordinates as r = a + bθ.
• The building appearing at 3:49 could be 200 mission St located in San Francisco.

Samples / Lyrics

• The vocal heard over the track is sampled from "In the Beginning Was Consciousness", a lecture by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr at Harvard Divinity School on May 1, 2003.^[2] The lyrics are spliced together from different parts of the lecture and Q&A.
• Timestamps in the table below correspond to the referenced YouTube video of the lecture. Words and phrases from the lecture have been combined to create new phrases altogether.

• 4 seconds into the track an obfuscated voice can be heard, although it is unknown what the voice is saying.
• The flute that can be heard at the beginning of the track is most likely a sample of a Persian (or Turkish) Ney, traditionally the lowest pitch of the ney is a C, which is the key of Prophecy At 1420 MHz.

Trivia

• The song premiere occurred 30 minutes earlier than intended on the album's Apple Music page, which allowed some users to listen to the single early.

Videos

The split music video for the song was released on May 7th, 2026, through the band's official YouTube channel.
It is directed by Robert Beatty and produced by Greg Burne of Big Active.

Audio

See Also

• "Introit"

External links

References

1. ↑ wikipedia:Wow!_signal
2. ↑