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It's been almost a week since I posted this CDr to the WFMU blog, and since then I have been ransacked by e-mails and comments crying "hoax" or "bubble boy," from everyone from random passers-by to the higher-ups at WFMU. Rather than address all the theories being espoused by readers from around the globe, I simply want to aver that this is indeed a true story, and is in no way meant to be a self-promotion tactic. Any alterations to the WFMU blog entry post-publication -- or my own personal blog -- were done in an attempt to quell the uprising of cynics. Had I known that my actions would only add fuel to the fire, I would have simply let things stand as they were. Clearly I've learned a valuable lesson in controversy control.

Usually when I find CD-rs out in the world, they've been tossed out of car windows or left on the counters of stupid hipster coffeeshops. The last place I ever expected to find an unlabeled CD-r filled with music would be in the middle of the fucking desert. But nearly two years ago I was hiking in Joshua Tree and I came across a completely surreal sight: an old-school 5 1/4" computer floppy disk. It appeared to have been tossed casually near the side of the trail I was on, housed in a simple plastic baggie. I reached into the bag and pulled out the floppy disc. I noticed that the magnetic tape inside the plastic case had been replaced by a recordable compact disc. The disc had a creepy message scrawled on it which read, "A silvery female voice breaking through onto the airband sang in German, 'We are from another world, but you have cut us out". I don't believe in ghosts or extraterrestrials or anything, but standing in the middle of nowhere reading that line was enough to send me into a miniature freak out. What's more, a folded-up piece of paper was also buried inside the plastic cover. A treasure map. Browned edges and everything. It featured a pirate ship (?), a series of footsteps through mountains and palm trees (?), one red X, and ten blue X's. One of of the X's appeard to be floating in the middle of a body of water.

Whoa.

I listened to the recording on my drive back to LA that night. It was indescribably weird. The dedication to the floppy disk case, chicken scratch message, and treasure map implied that someone with way too much time on his or her hands crafted it. The insanity of the recording -- with one or two kind of pretty moments -- mirrored the obsessively constructed feel of the package. I didn't know if I was listening to the work of a mad genius or a deranged psychopath. The sounds are a combination of heavily processed human voices and schizophrenic space music. The 11 tracks are very short, with only four "tunes" lasting longer than three minutes. Most are in the thirty-second to two-minute range in length. I wouldn't call it "rock," but it's guitar-centric. I also wouldn't say that it is very good, but it made for an interesting listen.

When I got home I popped the CD into my computer. I thought that maybe in this age of iTunes and CDDB maybe my computer would recognize the content of the disk. All that came up in iTunes was a series of songs names. In place of artist and title was "???". The song titles made no sense to me at all. The final track is a 14-minute long jam in E called "Matthew 24:14". Google tells me that that bible verse says: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come"

I have played this CD for record scum collector friends and pop culture junkies in the hopes that someone might recognize something about it, from a riff to a clip from some television show or movie. The only constant is that no one knows what to make of it. I've spent a lot of time needlessly wondering what the fuck this is. What the fuck was that treasure map for? Has anyone else ever found something like this? SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?!

The most frustrating part of this whole thing is that the only identifying mark was a tiny, hand-scrawled e-mail address at the bottom of the back cover for the floppy disk: andernestborgnineasdominic@gmail.com. I could have gotten all CSI on this shit and tried to figure out how to find who registers a Gmail address or taken fingerprints from the package. I didn't. In the end I figured contact information wouldn't have been included if it wasn't meant to be found. I tried to send an e-mail saying that I enjoyed the album -- just to maybe receive some kind of response -- but I never got one. That's annoying. The only rationale I can think of is that a bizarre work of art conceived and executed such as this wouldn't have the same impact if the creator(s) wanted to be discovered. Or maybe someone responsible lost his or her mind (or maybe the Gmail password) in the time it took me to find it. The only thing I can say is: What. The. Fuck. ???

Artist: ???
Title: ???

Tracklist:
01. Breath (MP3)
02. Wound Midnight (MP3)
03. Long Stem Road (MP3)
04. Noah's Dork (MP3)
05. Used (MP3)
06. Iranbow (MP3)
07. Monied vs. Landed (MP3)
08. The Seventh (Clubbed) Seal (MP3)
09. Gloomsday (MP3)
10. Shooting Scars (MP3)
11. Matthew 24:14 (MP3)

Comments

[Todd]

A quick Google shows that the character Dominic was played by Ernest Borgnine in "Airwolf."

[8ight]

Where did these tracks names come from? Were they on the disc already as mp3s? Maybe I missed that part of the story.

[Senor Itchy]

I ran a segment of each track through Shazam and nothing was recognized. My test by no means was comprehensive.

[everyonegets15minutesofblame]

I've listened to a lot of Hafler Trio and the like... paid good money for music like this! ;-) And have made a couple of cds like this too. Don't be ashamed of your stuff, SF. You don't have to pretend it isn't yours, just because those like "DigsRetro" (who I would assume to be a 17 y.o. nerdchick who thinks her Jesus and Mary Chain tshirt makes her punk) think it's stupid.

[N0N_3NT1TY]

In this day and age, with the music industry in the lowly state it's in, any kind of promotion is necessary for a band. I for one very much enjoyed this attempt at DIY viral marketing, and also very much enjoyed listening to the album whilst I read the comments.
If this WAS an attempt at self-promotion I would like to see more from Swan Fungus and hope that he may set himself up on some more well known sites.

If you're reading this Swan Fungus, please get in touch and I'll send you an invite to Muxtape so you've a platform to expose yourself. Maybe we can hear more of this great desert-music in the future.

[NoMysteryFound]

This is just shameless self promotion by Swan Fungus.

If you read the mp3 tags of the last file "Matthew 24:14", you will find "Musky Taint

[NoMysteryFound]

This is just shameless self promotion by Swan Fungus.

If you read the mp3 tags of the last file "Matthew 24:14", you will find "Musky Taint Tres Mellow 2006" evan: tremelo ilya: delay dan: bass ken: drums".

Then Google "Musky Taint Tres Mellow" and it will bring you to Swan Fungus' blog.

No mystery, just a hoax.

[Brkwkr]

So reality TV has been replaced by hoaxsters. Ballon boy, this crap. Lame, cuz the music is really good.

[Thomas Pearson]

Ill give you $20 for it. :D

[ZombieGoats]

I agree with N0N_3NT1TY. Why such hate for some creative self promotion. Would such animosity still exist if it turned out to be a famous musician?

[Beetlebub]

a quick search on Archive.org found the references to Musky Taint here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070730121316/blog.swanfungus.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

on this entry:
Thursday, June 15, 2006
"Oh, That Wasn't the Interview?"

Couldn't find the other references to the "Silvery Female Voice" that was supposed to be in some 2006 post. I looked through all the 2006 archived site and couldn't find it.

[comment]

Sounds like the aliens have been influenced by Pink Floyd. Damn aliens, always ripping off our Earth stuff. Same key and chords on some of the tracks. Is there a Guitar Center close to Alpha Centauri? No wonder they threw it away, they realized they were'nt original either.....the map leads to WalMart to Pink Floyd's greatest hits album. Tape reverse much. Beatles? Holy Crap are all aliens in their mid 40's with a DAW? Now we know. Wittgenstein is rolling over in his grave out in the desert next to a stack of Pink Floyd albums. Fun listen though.

[Beetlebub]

Opened the file in Winamp and looked at the ID3v1 tag and this is what it said for Matthew 24:14

Title: Qygmalion
Artist: Musky Taint
Album: Tres Mellow
Year: 2006

In the ID3v2 tag there was this:
evan: tremelo
ilya: delay
dan: bass
ken: drums

Some more Google searching:
http://www.swanfungus.com/2006/12/tres-mellow.html

[AAA]

the song titles also seem awfully similar to these http://www.swanfungus.com/2006/08/obsure-references-punhouse.html

Also, a band called The Obscure References, and an email address that references Airwolf?

[jrg]

And to think I spent a good 30 minutes on Google Earth looking for a match to the "treasure map." And I even found something similar to it...a lake with "silver" in its name.

[Question Mark]

Also suspicious is the MP3's are different bitrates and were ripped by different programs (or at least with different ID3 settings for encoder). Why would the posted versions be from multple individual rips if the album had been found whole? Of course that proves nothing, just strange.

[romulusnr]

Maybe pareidolia, but I'm pretty sure the glitchcore-d voice in the background of track 7 says "Swan Fungi Exist". After using a tempo changer on it I'm even more convinced.

[Sean]

Reading this for the first time, that sounds like something someone would drive out to Black Rock Desert and just leave for someone to find at a later point. Burners would do something like that. (except the leave no trace behind, point they'd be breaking)

[Sean]

The first poster made a reference to airwolf, i found the same thing

and ernest borgnine as dominic @ gmail

Ernest Borgine plays Dominic in Airwolf. Anyone try a handful of airwolf related passwords on that account?

[0piad]

Quite the angry opinion and I would say this material is far from "stupid"

[Ktulu]

Hoax or not, still pretty cool. Very Lovecraftian all around.

[Doctor K]

WFMU should repackage this exactly the way you found it. Burnt map, floppy sleeve etc. And issue it on its own label. Promote the 'mystery cd' heavily. When you get a 'cease and desist letter', check out who it's from. That's your man, or lady.

[Judas Gutenberg]

I'd just like to say that I made the CDR and it must have accidentally fallen out of my pocket when I was hiking in Joshua Tree last year. (I told a friend about it, and she happened to come across this post through BoingBoing, alerting me.) Please return it to me at your earliest convenience! And thanks for finding it!

Mail it here:

Judas Gutenberg
245 Dug Hill Road
Hurley NY 12443

Thanks!

[raekwon]

"Any alterations to the WFMU blog entry post-publication -- or my own personal blog -- were done in an attempt to quell the uprising of cynics." Oh yeah, THAT makes a lot of sense.

[Kevin]

Hmm, the guy who took the blotter acid before getting confused and placing his pirate map and cd inside the floppy disk shell, then tying to jam it in his car cd player to get it to work. He then hallucinated some fairy pixies and chased them down the trail, thus dropping his new floppy/cd/pirate map creation. he was never head from again!

Well ...it's a nice guess at the story..probably pretty close...