Eno Test & Parson
Revision as of 06:51, 4 July 2025 by 172.68.35.55 (talk) (reorganized all content, tightened it up a bit, and added info about the 2025 release of both tracks by Marumari)
| Eno Test | |
|---|---|
| Running time | 4:38 |
| Appears on | P2P networks |
| Parson | |
|---|---|
| Running time | 5:12 |
| Appears on | P2P networks |
"Eno Test" and "Parson" are two tracks by Marumari which are often misattributed to either Boards of Canada alone, or to Marumari & Boards of Canada. Both tracks are the work of Marumari alone.
"Eno Test" is sometimes misrepresented as "Stry Craty Bya", which is the name of a track from Acid Memories, a Boards of Canada album that has never been released to the public.
Contents
Discovery and provenance
The songs were discovered in the early 2000s on various P2P networks. They are among the earliest mislabeled tracks; "Eno Test" was first mentioned on idm-l on May 14, 2000. "Parson" was first mentioned in another post (in conjunction with "Eno Test") on Jan 12, 2001. They were included on the earliest archived copy of DavidAC's BoC pages, dated August 2002.
On 19 March 2020, Marumari confirmed that he created "Eno Test" "back in the Napster days". It seems he created it circa 2000, named it "Eno Test", and never gave it an official release. The track wound up on file sharing networks and bootleg audio discs, where it gained a life of its own, spreading and being given different names, including "Stry Craty Bya".
The main melody of "Eno Test" is sampled from the song "But If" by Brian Eno on the album "The Drop" (1997)
Official releases
"Eno Test" was first officially released on May 1, 2002 as "Submarine Tactics" on the We Bore CD-R compilation on Toast and Jam Recordings.
Over two decades later, on May 23, 2025, it appeared as "Emergency on Bleecker (Enotest)"' on Marumari's self-released compilation album Hidden Tracks and Rarities 2001–2005, available digitally and on cassette via Bandcamp.
Both of these appearances run about 5:07.
"Parson" also appeared on Hidden Tracks and Rarities 2001–2005 under the name "Sarson (Parson)".
More unofficial appearances and variations
"Eno Test" is listed on http://www.bradleysalmanac.com/tradelist.htm as part of a 3-disc Stereolab bootleg named B-Sides Collected. It is listed as the 15th track on the second disc and credited as "Eno Test (with Marumari)."
"Eno Test" can take the form of two differently structured cuts of "Submarine Tactics" that diverge near the 3:30 mark. The two versions are linked below:
- A version of "Submarine Tactics" with running time 5:08 uploaded by newwave808 to YouTube on 4 March 2018 – This matches the 2025 release and probably also the 2002 CD-R release, based on the duration listed in Discogs.
- A version of "Submarine Tactics" with running time 4:37 uploaded by Liquid Laced Light to SoundCloud on 11 December 2018 – This purports to be from the CD-R, but seems to be a shorter edit.