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[fish]

ok, so there's this new band in england called These New Puritans


from wikipedia:
These New Puritans (sometimes abbreviated to TNPS) are a four-piece band from Southend-on-Sea. The band consists of Jack Barnett (song writer, co-producer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist), his twin brother George Barnett (drums, tapes, he is also in charge of designing much of the bands artwork with Jack), Thomas Hein (bass guitar, sampler, backing vocals, percussion) and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson (keyboards).

Their first full-lenght album is titled BEAT PYRAMID, and it's my favorite album of the year. The thing sounds like joy division, wire, M.I.A and the fall having sex together. and it's FULL OF WEIRD NUMERAL REFERENCES AND CRYPTIC LYRICS.

i believe it to be an elaborate puzzle.

constant repeating references to "the numbers" in the lyrics leaves me to believe im looking for a particular string of numbers. why? im not sure yet. how will i know when i get there? the album will tell me.

So, the lyrics constantly refers to "the numbers", and there's a lot of numbers everywhere. where to begin?

the tracklist:

   1. "..ce I Will Say This Twice" – 0:16
   2. "Numerology AKA Numbers" – 3:11
   3. "Colours" – 2:26
   4. "Swords of Truth" – 3:12
   5. "Doppelgänger" – 1:30
   6. "C. 16th ±" – 1:38
   7. "En Papier" (J. Barnett, G. Barnett, T. Hein) – 4:55
   8. "Infinity ytinifnI" – 2:26
   9. "Elvis" – 2:46
  10. "£4" – 2:43
  11. "MKK3" - 2:13
  12. "4" - 0:07
  13. "Navigate-Colours" (J. Barnett, G. Barnett) - 4:20
  14. "H." - 0:28
  15. "Costume" (J. Barnett, DB Cooper) - 3:36
  16. "I Will Say This Twi..." - 0:08

note: the forst and last track are just a few seconds of background noise, and a girl speaking. in the first one she says "...ce i will say this twice", followed by background noise, while the last starts with background noise and ends with the same girl saying "i will say this twi....". if you play them back to back, starting with the last, you get the girl saying "i will say this twice, i will say this twice", sandwiched in background noise. that tells me the band wants me to listen to the album over and over. which is exactly what ive been doing for 3 days.

then you already have a bunch of numbers in the track listing.
16th, 4 pounds, MKK3, 4.

the first real song on the album, Numerology AKA Numbers, asks what your favorite number is, and what it means. and then insists that every number has a meaning, over and over. the song then enumerate, and gives a meaning to numbers 1 through 10, but skips 5 and 8 for seemingly no reason. We learn that 1 is the individual, that 4 is a number that will flow through this music, and that 7 is triviality.

the next song, Colours, informs us that there is a color that we dont see, and that this color is gold. the bands also refers to themselves having "the numbers behind their eyelids", and letter tells us that we too, have numbers behind our eyelids.

then, the sword of truth asks who wrote all the numbers in our bodies. the band later tells us that it is they, who put the numbers in our bodies.

SO. NUMBERS. numbers in bodies. ratios? the color gold. THE GOLDEN RATIO.
that's 1.618

and that's where my trail ends at the moment.
there's a ton of other weird numeral references and general weirdness, like the song colours, which ends at the beginning of the album, only to start again, interupting another song on the track Navigation-Colours.

[fish]

also worth noting that track 12, entitled "4", is just 8 seconds of silence with a little noise at the end.

1248?

[Jimbob]

I managed to snag a review copy of this waaay back from my university.

I liked it, but from reading a fair bit about them and through their interviews, I think the circular references are as many parts put-on pretension as they are an elaborate puzzle. Still, they might have but something at the end of it. You might be interested to know that they released an extended version of the Navigate part of Navigate-Colours, called Navigate-Navigate. Should be floating around somewhere to stream.

I have to agree that Numerology and Colours are absolute tunes though. 

[reetva]

also worth noting that track 12, entitled "4", is just 8 seconds of silence with a little noise at the end.

1248?

Didn't the Aztecs do something that year? I guess the Aztecs sorta built pyramids, too. Hm...

Edit: Upon further Googling, Wikipedia says that the Aztec civilization was founded on that year. Not sure if that's reliable data, but I can hardly see someone editing the page for the year 1248 to provide incorrect information.

[William Broom]

Pretensious or not, they sound pretty awesome.

Is that how you spell pretensious?

[Gainsworthy]

I think it's spelled pretentious. Though, this doesn't sound pretentious. This sounds fun. Maybe we should pick it up.

[Valter]

I think that you're distracting from the topic's real issue.

I think the most likely "hidden data" that could be there would be some kind of space-time coordinates that you could arrange somehow. If anyone here reads xkcd, they might get that. Anyway, if you could finangle some kind of latitude and longitude numbers, you could find something there? Like, Atlantis or some shit?

[Tobasco Panda]

Yeeeaaah, so I totally see what you mean Fish. I've been listening to this almost exclusively for a few days now.

It's kind of.... Blur meets The Pixies and Adam and the Ants.

She's into phenomology!

[Jimbob]

It's kind of.... Blur meets The Pixies and Adam and the Ants.

Have you guys listened to

? Probably less Pixies and more POP but fun nevertheless. No hidden messages though I don't think.

[Akhel]

This is fantastic! You have a damn fine musical taste, fish.

[oneup]

super awesome music!

also; three days ago in berkeley i found this:





i don't think the numbers on the sticker mean anything, but it was fun to walk around berkeley campus and suddenly see a "fez" sticker