The fevered quest for a track (that is likely to be) referred to as “CIA” – Nationwide
There’s a whole nook of the web the place track sleuths spend hours making an attempt to determine songs of unknown origin. Amongst these quests was the observe dubbed “The Most Mysterious Music on the Web,” which, after years of fruitless looking out, was recognized as Subways of Your Thoughts by a German band referred to as Fex. A forty-year riddle had been cracked.
The track, a largely unremarkable instance of European synth-pop, grew to become well-known solely due to its obscurity. Within the digital age with lyric searches, Shazam, and different on-line instruments, how was it doable for a track to be really unknown, particularly if that’s the case many individuals had been on the lookout for it? As soon as the chase was on, lots of status rode on whoever gained.
For his or her half, Fex had no concept that their 80s observe had grow to be the Holy Grail of “lostwave,” these orphaned songs of unknown origin and provenance that float across the Web, ignored by all besides these decided to seek out the reply. Within the case of Fex, they’re delighted. In actual fact, they’ve reunited, began enjoying gigs, and have even had “Subways of Your Thoughts” positioned in a movie or two.
Now that one thriller has been solved, track sleuths have turned to a different: A Canadian track (allegedly) referred to as (allegedly) CIA that (allegedly) taped off the radio onto cassette when it was (allegedly) performed on CFNY/Toronto in (allegedly) mid-to-late 1984.
The prevailing principle is that that is some band from someplace in Southern Ontario which will have entered one of many station’s expertise searches, referred to as The Nice Ontario Expertise Search, a winter mission that ran between October 1984 and February 1985 and usually acquired greater than a thousand entries yearly.
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Or the track appeared on a cassette to be performed on CFNY’s indie music present, The Streets of Ontario, which was dedicated to indie music and rising expertise. I do not know the place all these cassettes at the moment are, but when an archive exists someplace, it could include 1000’s upon 1000’s of tapes.
CIA, or no matter it’s referred to as (Coming Residence? This Winter?), acquired its second life round 2020 when it was uploaded to YouTube and has since been seen practically 600,000 instances.
That is what everyone seems to be questioning about. Disregard the paintings; that’s only a placeholder by whoever uploaded the track to YouTube.
Right here it’s once more, however in what seems to be a sped-up model. Complicated issues is this put up that options audio from Subways of Your Thoughts by Fex. That led some to consider that CIA had been positively recognized. It hasn’t.
I can’t inform you what number of emails I’ve acquired about this track. I’ve consulted with all of my outdated CFNY colleagues, combed by the unique CFNY library (most of which sits in my basement, however that’s one other story), and gone again by any station playlists that also exist. Liz Janik, the co-host of The Streets of Ontario again in ’84, stored meticulous information and has nothing to supply. We’ve provide you with nothing, so you’ll be able to cease the emails.
Besides that the CIA hunters won’t surrender. The CBC just lately picked up on the story and recommended that the track might need roots within the Kitchener-Waterloo space. I’ve additionally had a few messages from individuals who again up the idea.
The most recent comes from a mysterious lostwave hunter who goes by the identify Riff. He/she/it (there are hints that some type of AI agent is concerned) has been compiling a paper path to seek out who’s behind CIA. With permission, I share the next.
CIA was first uploaded to YouTube after which re-uploaded in 2021, which pointed to some involvement with The Nice Ontario Expertise Search. Additional analysis signifies that our artist was considered one of roughly 90 unsigned bands from Southern Ontario. Nobody has an inventory of these acts.
Riff went by 63 problems with RPM, the one-time bible of the Canadian radio and recorded music trade. He additionally scoured the problems from Oct 1983 by Dec 1984. No luck.
The winner of the 1984 Nice Ontario Expertise Search is misplaced to historical past — no less than so far as I can inform, based mostly on searches of my CFNY archives that also exist within the properties of colleagues. Any documentation we uncovered left the winner area clean. I began at CFNY in 1986, so this pre-dates me, that means that I wouldn’t have the cassette wherever in my private archives.
A tracklisting cassette issued with the winners for that 12 months’s Nice Ontario Expertise Search. These finalists had been MIA, Tibet, Europa, and Zip Zip. 4 answered inquiries and had been dominated out. The fifth finalist, Pattern & Maintain, flatly stated it wasn’t them however did say the track “sounds acquainted as a GOTS band. The sixth band on the tracklisting? We don’t know. It was left clean.
A letter asking one of many 1985 judges, J.J. Macrae, who the sixth finalist was (and who gained ’84) went out. No reply regardless of a follow-up.
That is geeky: the synth intro to CIA runs on a strings preset from a Korg Poly-800 — which guidelines out any launch date earlier than 1983, the 12 months that synth hit the market
Who taped the track? Unknown. That individual’s id has been protected since 2021. Attention-grabbing, provided that individual is likely to be the important thing to the thriller.
That’s all I’ve received, however Riff is providing the whole search file (i.e., the whole paper path) for $30. In case you’re the sort of one that desires to dig into this, drop me a line at alan@alancross.ca, and I’ll put you in contact. In the meantime, there’s a whole lostwave wiki entry on CIA that purports to include all the most recent on the seek for this track.
That’s it. I swear it’s all I’ve received. And given all the eye this matter is getting, I’m stunned nobody has come ahead but. The thriller could by no means be solved–but when it occurred for Fex and Subways of Your Thoughts after greater than 4 a long time, nothing is not possible.
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