Revision as of 03:04, 15 May 2017

"(With) a grain of salt", (or "a pinch of salt") is an idiom of the English language, which means to view something with skepticism, or to not take it literally. [1]

Future Releases Theories

2016

BoC began 2016 by breaking their silence after "Tomorrow's Harvest" by releasing two new remixes one month apart from each other, Mr Mistake by NEVERMEN and Sisters by Odd Nosdam. The latter was accompanied by a video ^[2] which was formally released on February 22nd. This led to some speculation that some new material could be in the works.

After a few months passed, they recaptured the attention of their fanbase with an innocuous post to their generally dormant social media accounts on June 6th, 2016, linking to an existing fan made video for "Macquarie Ridge". A month later, on July 7th they retweeted another fan video of the "Broken Drum by Beck" remix that had been posted to Twitter on July 2nd.

They tweeted once again, this time a Youtube link to "Peacock Tail" on July 31st. The last post raised some uncertainty as to whether they would continue posting in a 6/6, 7/7, 8/8 type frequency.

Around this same time, ASCAP entries for a release entitled "Harvest Ritual" and Untitled (Machinedrum reconstruction) were discovered ^[3], but quickly disappeared after they were noticed and the former subsequently waved off ^[4] as an old Tomorrow's Harvest related entry by someone ^[5] making their first (and still only) post on the Twoism (messageboard). After 8/8 came and went, the next known date of interest was 8/22 (the 20th anniversary of the system date on the Cosecha-transmisiones console) but this date also passed without incident.

With 8/8 and 22/8 eliminated as possibilities, what's the next date that would make sense for them to make another appearance out from the ether?

They finally posted a fan video for "Nothing Is Real" on August 24th which didn't seem to follow any type of previously speculated upon date related logic.

They posted again on October 14th, this time for the song "Left Side Drive".

Over the span of the few months described above, they had begun liking various fan posts on Twitter, seemingly at random, many of the fan posts including pleas for new material or involving the liking of tweets that included their own music. This activity slowed down as time went on, briefly peaking at 49 likes before dropping back down to 48 likes, before going up to 49 likes again in February 2017 - the original 49th liked post was deleted by its author, so keeping the tally set to 49 likes seemed important to them at this stage.

They posted a new fan video for "Open the Light" on December 8th, alongside a simultaneous heavy revamp of their Youtube channel playlists, which had been in need of some upkeep as by that time, as there were multiple broken or delisted videos from over the years. What was interesting about the "Open the Light" post is that it wasn't cross-posted to Facebook, the same as "Peacock Tail" back on July 31st. I feel that these omissions from their Facebook account weren't an accident but rather, those 2 entries were only relevant to a pattern that they were establishing at their Twitter account, but more on that in the Posting Details section.

Rather than a new release announcement at the end of the year, the Youtube video channel revamp seems to have joined the campaign midway to serve as a map of sorts, providing vague hints to assist in navigating the numeric trails being blazed at both their Facebook and Twitter accounts for those who were trying to pay attention. I'll go into more detail on that as the timeline continues to progress.

After the playlist revamp and the "Open the Light" posting on December 8th, they went silent for the rest of 2016.

2017

BoC returned to Twitter on March 28th, 2017 with a posting of the "Dayvan Cowboy" video. Shortly before this (sometime within the several hours prior to the Dayvan Cowboy post) they deleted an old tweet from March 11th, 2012.

Posting Details

Twitter

Now that the events have been summarized, it's time to get to the details. As described above, each social media network account seems to have its own unique pattern, but the same crucial end points. Twitter is the most plentiful (and therefore easiest to pick out a method to the madness) so it's best start to start there with a list of the dates and posts so far:

2016

6/6 - Macquarie Ridge - 3:06 AM CET

7/7 - Retweet of Broken Drum from 7/2 - 12:19PM ET (original tweet)

31/7 - Peacock Tail (2005) - 5:25PM GMT

24/8 - Nothing is Real (2013) - 12:57PM UTC

14/10 - Left Side Drive (2006) - 3:11AM MT

8/12 - Open the Light (1998) - 8:57AM UTC

2017

28/3 - Dayvan Cowboy (2005) - 6:56 MT

- The main pattern to follow for 2016 involved multiplying the date and month together for the posts when both numbers are divisible by 4. We add up to 24 in other even numbered months. We subtract down to 24 in odd numbered months, the odd months are also preceded by a retweet. For 2017, we may be multiplying in odd numbered months instead.

- "Macquarie Ridge" is unique (for now). I'm going to defer to Video Playlist entry 66 - Constants are Changing and say that we should subtract, not add or multiply these numbers.

- The other hint to multiply is when the timestamp ends in :57. The timestamp on the Cosecha console was 2:57 - potential nod to the number 70 2x(5x7)

- The multiplication sum halves with each subsequent step, while alternating with the added/subtracted 24s, and de-increments by 4 hours each time it happens. (12:57 -> 08:57 -> ??:??)

- The multiplication steps for 2016 included a number from the previous multiplication based step, and carries over the number to the next step (ie. 24 - 8 - 8 - 12) meaning that the month of the current tweet will be part of the subsequent tweet's date. ie. August 24th means the 8 carries to December, giving us December 8th, etc. As of 2017, the first post (28/3) indicates that we may be reversing last year's rules (84 instead of 48, multiplying in odd months instead of even)

- They specify the year of release for "Peacock Tail", "Nothing Is Real", "Left Side Drive" and "Open the Light" in the title of the respective tweets. If treated as two pairs, they are both separated by 8 years. A look back at their discography determines that 2001 and 2009 as the only other remaining pair of year that functions this way.

- Based on the rules above, omitting any retweets, the main numeric pattern for 2016 should be read like this:

6/6 - 0

31/7 - 24

24/8 - 192

14/10 - 24

8/12 - 96

These are the posts for 2017 so far. I believe that 2017 will function like a mirror of 2016. The first post indicates that we may be targeting divisors of 84 (as opposed to 48 last year) and multiplying in odd months instead of even:

28/3 - 84

Broken Drum

All recent Twitter posts have specifically been part of this assumed large pattern, or have been related to promotion of a remix or physical release of some kind. That initial Broken Drum post didn't seem to make much sense in the scheme of things when it first came about, other than being a red herring that initially hinted toward a potentially more straightforward series of posts such as 6/6 7/7, 8/8, etc.

Going back to 2016, the Broken Drum retweet set up its own sub-pattern starting in July 2016. The original posting date (7/7) is obfuscated on Twitter because it's a retweet, but it was mentioned on the Twoism (messageboard) ^[6] on the day that it was first posted. This means that there were posts on 7/7, 31/7, and 24/8 - the commonality is that the posts were separated by 24 days each. The retweet approach seems as if it was intentional, to separate it from the main pattern and hide the existence of the smaller pattern.

Multiplication chain progression

Following the logic described previously, the multiplication related posts chain together like this. Think of it as a mirror, we stopped at 48 last year and now we're picking up at 84: If we follow last year's logic, we would pick up the 3 from March and use it as the date next time around.

24 x 8 | 8 x 12 < > 28 x 3 | ? x ?

Facebook

Much of the chatter from Twitter is omitted, but it seems that it has a potentially identical end goal, even if some of the same numbers are utilized in a different way. Note that only a single entry per "pair" makes it over to their Facebook account. This is what we know so far.

2016 - sum = 48

6 + 6 = 12

24 + 8 = 32

14 - 10 = 4

2017

? ? ? = ?

? ? ? = ?

? ? ? = ?

YouTube

Their approach to their YouTube playlist structure has been thoughtful and at times playful. Try subtracting the numbers of some of the entries from the overall number (145) to se what type of "companion" you end up with (for example, 72 and 73 are "SATellite ANthem ICarus" and "XYZ", interesting after they spelled out L-M-N-O-P with their first few social media posts) You can also add some of the duplicate song values together to see where you end up. They might ask you to do something like "Split Your Infinities" when you find a third instance in the list of the first 2 songs that you added together, for example.

Example of a playlist easter egg:

• 7 ("Dayvan Cowboy") [1]

• 47 ("Dayvan Cowboy") [2]

• 74 ("A Is To B As B Is To C") [3]

In the end, it's impressive to witness the care that went into assembling these playlists as a companion to what they have been establishing at their Twitter and Facebook accounts. It provides information that leads one to speculate on future posts. The only drawback to the playlist assembly is that due to the number of repeats, and the proximity of some of those repeats to each other, it detracts a bit from being able to appreciate the playlists at face value. The playlist construction definitely prioritizes the subliminal/easter egg aspects over providing a good flow for the everyday casual listener.

Playlist entries 24 ("New Seeds") [4] and 42 ( "csch" [5] are interesting as the first represents "Seeds" and the latter represents "Harvest" - this lines up with the fact that noteworthy entries incremented by 24 last year, and 21/42/84 in 2017.

Video 146 "Echus" was added to the video playlist on April 3rd, 2017. Echus appears elsewhere in the playlist at position 140 with a different video. The new video ends in a plane crash and has a description of "8/10/84" - presumably when the crash took place.

As of May 14th, 2017 (14x5 = 70) the "official Music" section of their YouTube account was updated to include 74 official full tracks. It is unknown when this section was created specifically, but it was last edited on this date. It has been noted that this playlist may not be viewable in certain regions (similar to their Soundcloud content)

The most interesting entries here are again 24 and 42, both evocative of the sun, described further in the "Over the Horizon Radar" section.

Official Music Entry 24 - "Hey Saturday Sun" [6]

Official Music Entry 42 - "Sunshine Recorder" [7]

Over the Horizon Radar Theory

A particular section of the YouTube video playlist is slightly suspicious. If we add together the current number of tweets and likes at their Twitter account and correlate that to a numbered playlist entry, we see a possible roadmap to future posts. Over the past few months (since the playlist re-order) that number has been holding steady at 79 - "Over the Horizon Radar"

• 

  YouTube Video Playlist Entries 78 - 84

Wikipedia says:

Over-the-horizon radar, or OTH (sometimes called beyond the horizon, or BTH), is a type of radar system with the ability to detect targets at very long ranges, typically hundreds to thousands of kilometres, beyond the radar horizon, which is the distance limit for ordinary radar.

The sum briefly dropped to 78 "Hey Saturday Sun" on March 28th, 2017 when they opted to delete a tweet from March 11th, 2012. It was quickly replaced with a tweet of the official "Dayvan Cowboy" video, bringing the sum back to 79.

June 15th has been predicted as the next tweet for 2 reasons - put together the playlist entry numbers for their last few tweets like this:

Video 15 - Nothing is Real (24/8/16)

Video 6 - Left Side Drive (14/10/16)

Video 1 - Open the Light (8/12/16)

Video 7 - Dayvan Cowboy (28/3/17)

(15/6/17)

Additionally, you can examine the timestamp of the Macquarie Ridge tweet, treat it like you're in Norway (as pictured in the video) and it's 15:06 CET.

This brings us to our next point, many of the entries in this section revolve around the concept of the sun. The next total solar eclipse will be August 21, 2017. I don't think they will actually do anything on this date as part of their posting sequence, but it does give us an important number - 168 (21x8). I believe that 168 will be the sum of all posts, if they opt to follow this projected timeline, similar to last year, which revolved around 24 instead of 21):

March 28th (28x3) = 84 - entry 79 "Over The Horizon Radar"

June 15th (15+6) = 21 - entry 80 "Korona"

July 6th (6x7) = 42 - entry 81 - Twoism Sunset

August 13th (13+8) = 21 - entry 82 "Twoism"

September 9th (9-9) = 0 - entry 83 "Tears from the Compound Eye" (check out playlist entry 99 for some compound eyes)

= 168 (21x8)

This only leaves entry 84 "Ready Lets Go" to figure out. Could it be an October 6th announcement with a release on December 8th? Wouldn't it be funny if we've been looking at that date from 2016 for a year and that's what they turned out to be?

SoundCloud

In April 2017, they updated their official SoundCloud page with most of their official content, as separate lists of tracks and a list of albums. The number of total songs is 69, but should be 70, because there is a "broken" track. On April 17th (4+17=21) followers received a notification that a Geogaddi playlist had been created. Later that day, the playlist was deleted. No other albums have a "playlist" per se, so this was unique. Examining the tracklist of Geogaddi further, it showed that track 21 (You Could Feel the Sky) was not present, but had Aphex Twin's Jynweythek Ylow in it's place.

References

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_of_salt
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjoArxwW2E
3. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13437
4. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13437&p=264601#p264601
5. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=4155
6. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=263668#p263668