WEBVTT - From the Vault: Play the Record Backwards, Part 1 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.360 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.720 name is Robert Lamb. In today's vault episode for you, 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.440 because it is Saturday, we have a classic episode. This 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.480 is Play the Record Backwards Part one. It originally published 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.400 eleven nine, twenty twenty two. This is one that I 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:29.200 did with the former producer Seth Nicholas Johnson back during 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.200 Joe's parental leave. So I hope you enjoy part one 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:34.400 of this series. 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:45.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.160 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:51.280 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:52.839 And I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.360 Seth is of course the producer of Stuff to Blow 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.640 Your Mind, but he also co hosts the music podcast 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.880 Rusty Needles Record Club. Today's episode is going to be 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.560 something of a crossover episode because we're going to be 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:06.679 talking about Stuff to Blow your Mind type stuff, but 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.720 this one is going to veer directly into vinyl record 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.760 territory for I think a large a large portion of 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.279 the episode, and especially when you get into that area, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.920 I'm really going to have to defer to you, Seth, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.600 being the master of records that you are, and with 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.840 myself being someone who was told from an early age 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.679 not to touch records, yes, and being an obedient child, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.120 I obeyed everyone on that and I have virtually not 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.039 touched any vinyl my entire life, because that's what grown 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:36.880 ups are supposed to do. 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.240 You know, it's not actually a bad rule to make 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.640 for children, because you know, they are very delicate. And 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.960 not only do I manufacture vinyl on my own, which 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.200 has taught me a lot about it, but also I 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.240 run a record label, so I've had it pressed at 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.640 vinyl factories, and I'm a big vinyl collector on my own, 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.920 and even me very familiar with what you should and 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.880 shouldn't touch. Basically, only touch the rim and the label, 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.079 never touch the grooves. Even I just because I'm a 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.280 human being, I'll be clumsy and drop something and it'll 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.720 like scratch against an edge and like, well that's ruined forever, 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.800 you know, So I can't imagine in trusting that to 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.240 a child. You know, That's why children's records are always 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.040 just scratched into oblivion. So so you know, I understand, 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.120 and I also understand why even adults have are hesitance 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.080 to jump into that world. 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.519 But I also see the attraction of it. Obviously. I 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.120 mean on Weird House Cinema episodes are always pointing out 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.799 which movies score has been re released in some sort 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:46.760 of strange, ultra rare vinyl release, and it's often beautiful 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.160 just from a packaging standpoint, but also when you get 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.160 down to the details of the record pressing, like, I 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.680 see the appeal of it. So it's not for lack 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.080 of occasionally thinking, hey I could, I could start getting 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.079 into vinyl. But yeah, just from an early age, I 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.360 was told shouldn't touch that, and I agree. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.960 I mean, it's wonderful for forcing yourself to be actually 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.120 involved in what you're consuming musically, that's my favorite part 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.960 about vinyl. Sure, the sound quality is better, there's no 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:20.639 getting around that. It is better. But in addition to that, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.919 I love that I need to put the record on 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.320 the little turntable, I need to turn on my stereo, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.720 got to put the needle in the groove, I need 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.079 to wait fifteen to thirty minutes, flip it over, put 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.000 it back on the other side. You know, like I 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.440 have an active interest in what I'm listening to, and 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.520 therefore it makes me appreciate it more. It's just like 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.600 eating sunflower seeds. You know, cracking open the shells is 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:43.400 half the fun. 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.320 You know. Okay, so you get that Tack Kyle experience 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:46.680 with it. 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.400 It's not just a passive series of zeros and ones 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.920 being pre chosen by an algorithm. I chose this record, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.840 I'm putting it on. I'm making these noises happen in 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:58.840 my own small contribution way. 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.720 So in this episode, we're going to be talking in 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.480 general about things hidden in music. You might think of 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.160 them as easter eggs or any other number of terms. 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.040 You might use hidden messages if you'd rather. And we'll 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:16.120 also be talking about accusations and panics associated with some 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.360 of these techniques, the psychology involved, and specific examples from 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:21.080 music history. 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.040 And as we explain these various record based techniques, I 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.560 will give some real world examples of them that you 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:29.719 can find in your local record store and that hey, 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.320 I think you should listen to, because I think every 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.599 example I give is something that I'm like, Yes, I 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.039 recommend this, go check it out. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.440 Excellent. Yeah, And some of these examples are going to 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.680 come up are things that were mentioned in papers I'll 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.039 be citing, but they're obviously ones In many cases you 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:45.720 were very familiar with and you can perhaps give a 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.400 little more background on right. All right, So the first 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.239 stop is going to take us back before musical recording 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.480 was possible, or at least to a time when the 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.160 main way to record music was at least via media 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.119 was to put it on paper, was to write down 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.880 the music, and even then a certain amount of musical 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.520 encoding is possible. So we have to be reminded that 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.440 music is information. So it shouldn't come as a surprise 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.560 that hidden information can be present in music in ways 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.359 that pre date analog or digital media. Not getting into 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.479 what's possible with language itself, because obviously, you know any 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.320 given song's lyrics in any given language, there's going to 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.760 be enough complexity there that you can hide things that 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:35.200 you can sort of get across points Subliminally. You can 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.400 use metaphors. I mean, all the weapons of language are 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.000 at your disposal if you at all know how to 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.440 use them when you're crafting lyrics. But beyond that, we 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:50.279 can certainly look at examples of musical cryptograms, because basically 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.760 musical symbols and musical notes can and have been used 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.359 in substitution ciphers. And we've talked about substitution ciphers on 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.640 pasted up of stuff to blow your mind. When musical 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.640 theorists in the West began to assign letter names to notes, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.640 steering I believe the ninth century CE, it also became 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.200 possible to turn things around. Though it wasn't until I 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.120 believe the Romantic period and beyond that that this was 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.039 really explored. So you might be wondering, well, okay, what 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.120 are you talking about here with the obviously we have notes, 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.320 we have an play, an a play, A B natural, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.239 et cetera. And this is where we see a great 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.119 example of this, and this is one that I mentioned 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.000 a number of you're familiar with. The famed Baroque composer 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.800 Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived sixteen eighty five through seventeen fifty, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.760 would employ what we call the Bach motif. So that's 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.200 a B flat an A A C and then a 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.599 B natural. Now you might say, well, well that's a 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.159 B A C B that's meaningless. Well, in German, a 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.240 B flat is B and a B natural is H, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.640 thus spelling out Bach. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:00.359 Clever. 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.360 Maybe maybe once you've it's been explained, maybe a little 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.320 too obvious, but but yeah, there it's an example where 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:12.760 he decided to using the system in place to label 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.720 these different sounds, to then turn it around and write 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.520 his no own name in the music itself. And there 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.200 are numerous other examples of this from other composers. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.360 You know, I've actually looked this up before because it 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.239 is it's a fun idea to communicate with the sounds 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:31.320 of notes. In fact, I remember there was a gosh 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.440 I believe it was a scene in the Paul Thomas 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.920 Anderson film Magnolia where they're on like a game show 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.120 and these are like what these are things you'll bring 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.680 to a picnic and they'll just play notes and they'll 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.080 like spell out the words, so like egg, I'll bring 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.640 an egg, that kind of thing, you know, like it's 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.760 it's something you can do and it's fun, it's puzzley, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.840 it's it's good times. So I've looked this up in 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.160 the past. There are approximately, especially if you include the 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.120 h as a part of it, around two hundred words 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.280 that you can spell using just musical notes. You know, 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.880 things like cabbage head. You know, like these things, these 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.480 things are possible, they're a part of that language. So 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.080 I think it would be difficult, but I bet you 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.760 could form a message you could form sentences and you know, 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.120 we'll talk more about more examples right now. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.920 Yeah, yeah, I mean, because you're essentially talking about music 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.360 obsessed individuals, total music nerds in different ages, just eventually 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.760 getting in there and just experimenting with what they could do, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.840 be it something that was about creating new sound, elevating 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.359 the art, etc. Or just having a laugh, and that's 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:40.199 those two ideas seem to run throughout the history of 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.840 this kind of hidden messages in music activity. There are 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.920 also older examples of musical cryptograms, including the work of 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:54.520 Renaissance musician Jocquin de Prez lived fourteen fifty five through 0:08:54.600 --> 0:09:00.280 fifteen twenty one. He was a French Flemish composer and 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:07.400 he composed a particular work, this is Missa Hercules du Ferrari. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.959 It was for the Duke of Ferrara, and the music 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.000 is derived from the musical letters in the Duke's name, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:19.800 a musical cryptogram that was later known as the Soghetto cavato. 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.719 Another example, American occultist Paul Foster Case would create a 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.400 cryptogram in the twentieth century that made use of esoteric 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.520 symbols and concepts and if I understand what I was 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.800 reading on it correctly. It used occult symbols Hebrew and 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.200 Latin to translate a word into notes, though the usage 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:44.520 here would be more ceremonial than anything. But one of 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.920 several examples will be touching on that either is within 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.160 the realm of the occult or we'll touch on examples 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.559 later that are more in the area of sort of 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.760 like foe occultism or accusations of occultism, etc. 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.960 So those are all excellent examples, but let's give our 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.200 audience one more that's a bit more modern something. Then 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.760 they can go find a record of right now, the 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.520 nineteen seventy seven album Let There Be Rock by ACDC. 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.360 They close with a song called a Whole Lot of 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:21.760 Rosie where the primary guitar riff goes aca daca or akkadaka, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.520 which is acdc's nickname in their home country of Australia. 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.359 Ah, that's impressive. I had no idea about that, huh, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.160 so John Sebastian Bach. Also, the members of ACDC all 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.680 all the same brain when it comes to coding the 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:37.520 songs here. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:38.840 Yes, shoulder to shoulder. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.479 So there are just a few brief examples to demonstrate 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.680 what is It was possible even before analog and digital 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.040 media becomes involved in the scenario. But at this point 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.720 let's move on to some more analog examples. So the 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.480 first thing we're going to look at with actual recorded 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.760 audio is something that I'm sure many, if not most, 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.120 of you are familiar with at this point, either by 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.000 virtue of various panics over popular music, especially satanic panic, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:14.120 and its reverberations through media from everything from horror movies 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:19.000 to supernatural television shows and so forth. But also it 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.600 impacts actual record an actual recording practice, an actual production practice, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.400 a technique known as back masking. 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:27.319 So before we. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.840 Get into any actual examples of back masking or allegations 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.240 of back masking, and this is where it gets, it 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.000 gets very weird because it seems like on the surface 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:38.559 you would think, well, either you're doing it or you're 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.720 not doing it, and if you're doing it, truly it's provable. 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.280 But it gets a little more ambiguous than that. So 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:49.040 in simple terms, this is reversing audio, especially recordings of 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:54.280 human speech, playing it backwards in a recording. In many cases, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.679 you know you know it when you hear it. Basic 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.360 backward speech, which is also sometimes utilized in media for 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.360 like alien words or arcane spells and so forth. A 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.559 lot of times it's used for creepy effects. And I 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.600 think we all we you know it when you hear it. 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.160 You can hear this this sound effect, and it's it's 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.240 people speaking backwards. That's what it is. 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:18.920 It's almost unfortunate that we're all so familiar with it 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.760 at this point, because back in the old days, before 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.160 you know, before we all walked around with computers in 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.120 our pockets and we all have the ability to record 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.920 ourselves whenever we wanted, it must have truly sounded foreign. 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.360 You know. It's here audio played backwards, and it's been like, wow, 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.000 what is that. I've never heard any creature make that 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.719 noise before. And now when we hear it, we just go, oh, 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.320 that's that's reversed audio. We know what it sounds like, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:42.880 you know, we know, we know the hallmarks of it. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.840 Yeah, And I guess with with actual reversed audio, they're 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.600 like one of two things happens. It just sounds weird 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.280 and cool and sounds like dark magic and so forth. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.880 And I think that's especially nowadays, that's how most of 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.840 us hear it. But also the brain can't help but 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.559 lean into it and sometimes try and hear things in it, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.560 and that gets into a whole other area. Now, the 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:12.400 other side of the equation we mentioned allegations of back masking, 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:18.559 erroneous back masking, arguments that especially dangerous seeming rock bands 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.400 of previous decades, the idea that they were actually back 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.720 masking in a way so that what sounds like just 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.640 normal lyrics can be reversed and have a totally different meaning, 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.280 usually one that is satanic. 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.760 Or sometimes not. There's a great episode of The Simpsons 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.679 where a joke is made that Paul McCartney snuck in 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.040 a recipe for lentil soup into Maybe I'm Amazed. We 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.320 have to play it backwards to hear it. And here's 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.520 actually the really fun part. Over the closing credits of 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.640 that episode of The Simpsons, they do play maybe I'm amazed. 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:56.360 This is actually a famous episode. This is the one 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:57.800 where Least becomes a vegetarian. 0:13:58.040 --> 0:13:59.520 This episode, that's a great episode. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.240 Yes, and so in that episode they do play maybe 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.000 I'm Amazed over the closing credits. And if you actually 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.240 record the closing credits audio and reverse it, they really 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.800 did insert a recipe for lentil soup into that song. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:14.600 It's wonderful. 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:15.079 Wow. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.160 Yeah, I had no idea the real song only in 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.680 the Simpsons episode Wow. 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.200 So it shouldn't surprise anyone that this practice goes back 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.760 pretty much as long as we've had the ability to 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.200 record in playback speech. In fact, I was reading, you know, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.560 there's a book titled Language, Myths, Mysteries and Magic from 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.320 twenty fourteen, and there's an article in there I'm backmasking 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.640 by Karen stoles Now, and the author points out that 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.800 this actually goes all the way back to Thomas Edison 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.080 around eighteen seventy seven, as the noted American inventor and 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:53.760 businessman would experiment with playing music backwards. I think, notably 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.680 a whistled version of Yankee Doodle Dandy, and this would 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:03.600 have been used via tinfoil phonograph recordings. He observed that 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.760 music quote is still melodious in many cases, and some 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.160 of the strains are sweet and novel, but all together 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.880 different from the song reproduced in the right way. And 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.080 I think this is a realization that certainly someone like 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.760 Thomas Edison was in a position to acknowledge and admire 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.080 back then. And then there's kind of been a wave 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:32.280 of it throughout audio history and certainly nowadays. I'd never 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:33.840 really looked at this before, but if you go on 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.720 like YouTube, you'll find so many examples of people taking 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.760 music and reversing like whole albums, just to play it 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.160 backwards and see what happens. Sometimes they have a specific 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.440 thing they're going for, maybe they're after something in the lyrics, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.160 or it's one of the cases that we'll be touching 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.880 on later on in this episode. But other times, especially 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:57.760 with I saw the number of ambient albums, people just 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.280 want to experience the album. I love both both the 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:02.720 forwards and backwards. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.240 I've got another little recommendation to throw in here. Okay, 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.320 So there is a wonderful musician and his name his 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.680 real name is Dave Portner, but he goes by av Tair. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.080 Av Tair is most famously from the band Animal Collective, 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.880 but he has a wonderful solo career as well. There 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.160 was a time when he was married to one of 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.000 the members of the band Moom and her name was 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.880 Krea Brecken. Okay, so they released while they were married 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:33.520 a collaborative album together called Pull Hair Rabbi All right, now, 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.240 when this album first leaked back in the days when 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.840 like leaking was a big issue. Folks would listen to 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.480 it and they were like, oh, this is a bad leak. 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.800 It sounds like the entire album is played backwards. Someone 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.480 let me know when you get a real version of 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:51.000 the leak. Well, av Tair himself came onto these boards 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.920 and was like, no, no, that's the real version. When 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.120 he and his wife had finished recording their album, they decided, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.920 you know, the entire album sounds better if you play 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.280 it backwards. So what became a pretty straightforward folk album 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:09.440 became a pretty foreign sounding backwards album and it's wonderful. 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.560 It's called pull Hair Rubbi. I highly recommend it, and 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.199 it sounds almost instrumental. It sounds very foreign, and it 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.600 sounds very strange because once they did reverse it initially 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.399 and they decided, yes, this whole album just will be 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.400 backwards versions of every single song, then they did start 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.159 leaning into that. They made special decisions that really highlighted 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.840 those choices, and it worked out really well. Genuinely, it's 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.800 a wonderful album. I think people should. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.879 Listen to it on a very I guess, kind of 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.120 simple level. It reminds me a lot of what's going 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.320 on with AI and creativity nowadays, be it with text 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:52.120 or visuals, where you have a level of human creativity 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.240 that's going into the machine, it's getting spat out in 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.640 some form, and then there's going to be a certain 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.160 amount of tweaking, either after tweaking to the resulting material 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.560 or then going back and seeing, Okay, now I see 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.960 what the technology does to what I started with. What 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.800 can I do to optimally change the results and make 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.200 it even more in line with what I'm trying to create. 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.560 I think this has been something that's an element of 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.240 creativity the people have used forever, which is just taking 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.159 some of the decisions out of the hands of the 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.960 creator to help influence something else, whether it be like 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.920 those you know, those like cut up practices where you're 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.360 trying to write lyrics, so you write little words, put 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.120 them in a hat and pull them out one by one, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.920 or you know those famous Brian Eno cards where there's 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.719 like difference like prompts written on each card that you 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:40.399 pull out, and that's supposed to help you with your 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.840 production process. Like you know, there's lots of examples of this, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:46.880 and yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I think 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.520 AI and intentional reversing just takes a few of those 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.000 decisions out of the hands of the artist. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:58.000 Now stalls Now also shares another example from Edison. Edison 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.159 and his colleagues were apparently also fond of making recordings 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.080 of someone saying mad dog and playing it backwards so 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.919 that it sounded like God damn. And this was not 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.880 any kind of early satanic record recording. This was apparently 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.399 just pure novelty. They just observed that this was the 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:22.040 case and found it amusing. But it touches on something 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.320 that will We'll keep coming back to the idea that 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.400 sometimes when you take spoken language and you reverse it, 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:34.399 it can sound like other words in that language. And yeah, 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.960 and then then there's a lot of psychological layering to 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:45.600 put on top of that. But we'll get to that now. Eventually, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.600 real to real tapes came along, this would have in 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.040 the nineteen thirties, and it became increasingly easy for audio 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.159 lovers to experiment with the medium. So, for instance, French 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.960 composer Pierre Schaeffer lived nineteen ten through nineteen ninety five 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.359 experimented with t looping, sampling and back masking, and the 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.280 use of back masking would then increase among avant garde 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.119 musicians during the nineteen fifties, according to Stassnow, and certainly 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:11.720 I think a lot of you out there can think 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:16.240 of various recording artists who use some of these tools, 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:21.440 tape loops especially. There are a lot of ambient recording 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.120 artists that I can think of that make use of this, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.960 But it comes down to just manipulating the recorded data 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.159 at heart. Now, in the history of back masking, it's 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.800 impossible to talk about all this without touching on the Beatles. 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.679 And it's not just because all of the Beatles are 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:42.199 popular and are an easy band to source for all this. 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.840 Like that, they really were the ones that are credited 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.280 with sort of bringing back masking into the mainstream, both 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.960 for good and kind of also for bad, for the 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:57.040 you know, leaning into the whole panic area. So to 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.360 be clear, though, all major and serious accounts, which which 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:07.280 stalls Now discusses in their paper, seem to drive on 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.040 the Beatles engaged in back masking purely for novelty's sake. 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.600 This entails large. I think The main examples here three 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.600 tracks off of the legendary nineteen sixty six album Revolver 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.679 that would be I'm Only Sleeping Tomorrow never Knows. But 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.600 then also the single Rain, which wasn't on that album 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.119 but came out of the same recordings. So specifically, on 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.640 these I'm Only Sleeping you have a back masked lead 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.840 guitar part by George Harrison. So George Harrison played it 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.760 one way. When they were tinkering around and figuring out, 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.240 you know, how they're putting all this together, they said, hey, 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:42.800 we like it better in reverse. Let's use it that way. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.840 It helps create this kind of dreamlike, you know, psychedelic sound. 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.200 Yeah, I'm sure just novelty variety and probably just purely 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.720 aesthetics is just what dictated these decisions for them. I mean, 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.840 and sure maybybe part of it. Was like, hey, it'll 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.480 be funny if people try to reverse these things because 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.359 they sound backwards, But I bet that wasn't really the 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.800 primary thoughts. I'm sure aesthetics were the first and foremost 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:07.920 decision maker there. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.960 Yeah, I've seen it mentioned that the John Lennon and 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.840 producer George Martin both kind of took credit for the discovery, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.360 but both in kind of casual ways, Like I think 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.520 George Martin was more along. It was more along the 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.440 lines of like, yeah, we were experimenting and this sounded good, 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.439 and John Lennon was more likely to say, well, I 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.719 was really high at the time and I kind of 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:32.760 discovered it either way, though Yeah Tomorrow Never Knows also 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.960 has backwards guitar on it, and then Rain stands out 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.920