Yankee, hotel, foxtrot can be heard in a womans voice on yhfs. News \ irdial reissues the conet project, a rare compilation of cold warera spy transmissions the original wikileaks, which influenced wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot. The conet project shortwave recordings, made famous by. Every sunday, ill be posting an entry in my albums of the aughts series, highlighting 50 great or neargreat albums released since jan. Some speculate that these signals are used for espionage by the likes of mossad, the cia and the former kgb. Originally issued in 1997 as a 4 disc set, the conet project is one of the most unusual and, ultimately, culturally substantial audio artefacts to have been. The conet project phonetic alphabet yankee hotel foxtrot. The conet project shortwave recordings, made famous by wilcos. On an album that could be regarded as a kind of americana version of ok computer, the chicagobased wilco.
If anything yankee hotel foxtrot will go down as a cultural artifact, and all you have to do is listen to the lyrics to understand the nature of wilcos being. Wilco made its nonesuch records debut with the release of yankee hotel foxtrot fifteen years ago today, on april 23, 2002. Yankee, hotel, foxtrot can be heard in a womans voice on yhfs penultimate track, poor places. Recordings of shortwave numbers stations dalla lingua inglese. Yankee hotel foxtrot numbers stations the conet project stuck. As for his album, the title is meant to be a sonic autobigraphy of raw myke from the ages of 14.
Theres more information in the included pdf booklet and via the official. Female voice yankee, hotel, foxtrot group 10, group 10 text, text november, lima, sierra, victor, november uniform, hotel, november, foxtrot, yankee. Recordings of shortwave numbers stations is a four later five cd set of recordings of numbers stations and noise stations. Wilcos album yankee hotel foxtrot is named for, and samples, a numbers station. Many artists have claimed inspiration from this project, perhaps most notably wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot taking the album name and borrowing samples directly from the project. Tweedy listened to the conet project constantly, the way normal people would a pop song. Wilco acquired the rights to the album when they subsequently left the label. Yankee hotel foxtrot was named after a series of letters in the phonetic alphabet that jeff tweedy had heard on the irdial box set the conet project. Number stations, sometimes called oneway voice links owvl broadcast a series of loops of numbers or letters. Lalbum yankee hotel foxtrot dei wilco prende il nome da phonetic alphabet nato, una registrazione di. The conet project recordings of shortwave numbers stations ird059. A 4cd documentary of shortwave number stations, which consist of nothing but an unidentified human voice reciting a long list of seemingly random numbers. Bbc culture the most unusual music album influences ever.
Under the working title of here comes everybody, it originally consisted of a sixtrack demo, before conflict began to arise over ken coomers drumming. This album is the result of years of laborious study by label head akin fernandez, who spent long hours tracking these. The conet project succeeds here, finding all sorts of strange treasures in the vast, unmentioned soundscape of shortwave radio. During the creation of the conet project we had the. Irdial sued wilco for infringement, and a settlement was reached out of court. The fourdisc collection of field recordings has gradually gained a cult following, and as a result has been implemented by a wide variety of artists, most noticeably boards of canada and wilco, the latter of which being the subject of a legal dispute due to their unlicensed sampling of the conet project on 2002s yankee hotel foxtrot. My favorite record store that ive never been to stereogum. So even as things seem final, clear, finished, and direct, yankee hotel foxtrot ends on a question mark, fittingly matched by several minutes of beautiful ambience. The recordings are also available for free download for the nonprofit use.
Foxtrotyankeehotelfoxtrot white noise static 0,0,9,68,1,0,52. As the torrent of water dried up for the first time in thousands of years. The conet project 5 cd edition pledge drive one of my favorite discoveries was the conet project. The conet project phonetic alphabet yankee hotel foxtrot tyler london. On the fourth track of the album, a woman repeats the words yankee hotel foxtrot numerous times. Recordings of shortwave numbers stations by the conet project. Yankee hotel foxtrot numbers stations the conet project. I understand it was even a bit of a fad some 10 or 12 years ago, used in the vanilla sky movie and championed generally by the likes of tweedy, devendra banhart, so on so forth. The collection is released by britains irdialdiscs record label in 1997, based on the work of.
The sample, used in the distortionlaced outtro to the song poor places, is taken from the conet project. The conet project shortwave recordings, made famous by wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot, reissued. You cant buy the kind of publicity wilco received last year, when reprise declined to release the newly completed yankee hotel foxtrot see sunken treasure, september 20. Yankee hotel foxtrot nonesuch, 2002, named after a track off the legendary conet project, and originally released on the internet in 2001 after being rejected by their label, is wilcos experimental album, all eccentric arrangements and skewed melodies. This majestic nonsense blends late, spacedout byrds and sticky fingersera stones i am trying to break your heart. New and expanded edition of this seminal box set from irdial now includes a 5th, previously unreleased disc of abstract transmissions from shortwave noise stations, plus an updated 80 page booklet and a set of postcards. How numbers stations operate a simple, consistent, and reliable format. Wilco will forever be one of those bands from which i pick and choose which songs ride best in my back pocket, with yankee hotel foxtrot being another. The conet project has been available for several years for free download from various places online, including. The album was named after a series of letters in the phonetic alphabet that tweedy had heard on the irdial box set the conet project. Firstly i was only dimly aware of wilcos existence and had to locate this album to listen to it for the purpose of this question. Yankee hotel foxtrot nonesuch records mp3 downloads, free. Conet project, the group wilco used samples on their yankee hotel foxtrot. The conet project recording, of number station e10mossad transmission yankee, hotel, foxtrot close.
Wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot was the stuff of legend before anyone ever heard it. Promised jetpacks these four walls album, and wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot album, the last of which was an. The iridial labels conet project has been gathering recordings of these eerie transmissions for years, and has released a 5disc collection of them gathered from all over the world. Lalbum yankee hotel foxtrot dei wilco prende il nome da phonetic alphabet nato, una registrazione di una numbers station inclusa nel decimo brano poor places e proveniente dallantologia di the conet project. It reminded him a little bit of himself when he tried to talk to other people. As i said before, yankee hotel foxtrot is an album that deserves a book more than just an article. But for all the talk of terminally hip influences jim orourke, krautrock, and the conet project yankee hotel foxtrot still conjures a classic rock radio station on fourth of july weekend. On september 18, 2001, wilco streamed the entire album for free on their website. That being said, others have suggested that the album is nothing short of complex, dangerously catchy, provocative and lyrically sophisticated, along with being both noisy and oddly serene if not a downright.
The album was completed in 2001, but reprise records, a warner music group label, refused to release it. On the fourth track of the conet project album, phonetic alphabet. Irdial reissues the conet project, a rare compilation of. Recordings of shortwave numbers stations is a four later five cd set of. But for all the talk of terminally hip influences jim orourke, krautrock, and the conet project yankee hotel foxtrot still conjures a. Yankee hotel foxtrot is the fourth studio album by american rock band wilco. The conet project recording, of number station e10mossad. Yankee hotel foxtrot is the fourth studio album by american indie rock group wilco, released in 2001 after one of the most notorious productions in music history. Foxtrotyankeehotelfoxtrot white noise static 0,0,9,68,1,0,5 2. Yankee hotel foxtrot thus qualifies as an appropriate companion for the lenten journey, a good prompt for contemplating the mind forgd manacles we all have to deal with in a fallen world, and especially in our own age, when white noise, feedback, and static have increased to levels never before known among humans. I now contend that wilcos yankee hotel foxtrot is a momentous artistic achievement that would. Yankee hotel foxtrot article archives chicago reader. Its like the harry smith anthology of american folk music for get smart fans.
I have played it at home through my alexa stereo setup, in the car, and through my studio reference monitors. The conet project 1997 jeff tweedys inspiration for various facets of the wilco album yankee hotel foxtrot including the titleprovided a fascination for many. Few irdial records gained as much attention as the conet project. It was sampled from the fourth track on the conet project. To tweedy newly flush, after the success of yankee hotel foxtrot the. The name yankee hotel foxtrot comes from a track from the 1995 conet project, a recording of number short wave radio stations that are surprisingly enjoyable to listen to, and were once used as a form of communication for soviet era spies. Wilco was being sued by irdialdiscs, who released the conet project.
Furthermore, if you will recall the cd collection of cryptographic world broadcasts from the conet project see wilco yankee hotel foxtrot, if mykes name rings a bell as contributor, you realize that he is not simply mono but totally stereo. Inside the string of seemingly nonsensical characters is a code which, if you have the decoding mechanism, delivers secret messages across borders and long distances to. Among the tracks is a woman with a heavy european accent repeating yankee hotel foxtrot, which gives a wilco album its name and is also sampled within that album. Where does the name yankee hotel foxtrot come from.
920 1029 1572 673 1347 991 400 1262 630 27 1298 355 510 1496 527 260 1025 1214 854 611 903 306 1364 1288 1607 435 841 1130 656 1133 105 238 448 828 332