Chapter 1

So this weird thing happened a while ago…

First up, I'll admit it. I’m a pretty big Weezer fan. So around some months ago, when they announced the gold album I was pretty excited!

Like Yeah they’re inconsistent AF, but once in a while they pump out a real gem! Pinkerton and blue are still some of my all time favourite albums. So you can just about picture my excitement when I browsed r / weezer just to find out the album had been leaked early!

The fact a lot of fans called it one of their better releases, added to my hype. Weezer releasing a good if not, great album and I’m there while it happens? Count me in!

There was only one issue however. To actually listen to the album, I first needed to acquire a leaked copy of it.

After a bit of digging through multiple hype posts, I only found link after link that had since been blocked. It was getting late and I wasn't planning on staying up all night for this cause. So I finally decided to just Write a post, blatantly asking if anyone had the album floating around in their Icloud. It went as follows:

-Anyone Have a functioning link?

Hi I’ve been looking all over the subreddit for a link to the gold album. Anyone have one that still works?

Within the first minute I already had a reply (Seriously I love this place sometimes).

It went as follows:

By: P4perface_Slagginz

Got one here, that isn’t blocked yet ██████████████

hope you Enjoy 🙂

That was the first and last time I interacted with the user Slagginz. As far as I know.

Eagerly I clicked the link and was immediately greeted with a zipfile. It was titled “Ithaka”.

I thought the name was a bit odd, considering I already knew the album title. But I ignored google's safety warnings and pressed download. Self assured that projects like this go through a lot of changes in development.

I opened the document and found the expected audio files. But something seemed a bit off.

First up, there were a lot of them.

It seemed like an unusually high number of tracks. While longer albums aren’t unheard of, it took me a bit by surprise. Especially since the band is usually known as more of a pop outfit.

Secondly however all of them were labelled after the names of people.

Was this some sort of weird concept album? I clicked on the first track simply titled “Sebastian”.

There was no drumbeat nor was there any guitar riff. Only faint ambience. Slowly a few noises became more distinct, buzzing that might belong to a fridge, a distant sound of people talking. Suddenly the people's voices grew louder. Then the first distinct sentence. “What are you doing here, wait what’s-”. The words were abruptly interrupted by a single large bang. It was unbearably loud and rang out a few seconds, but the voices carried on their conversation. The sound of deep breathing accelerated for a few seconds. Then the recording ended.

I was confused. Was this a weird album intro, what did it mean if it wasn’t?

I clicked on the second track, this one was titled “Susanne”

The recording cut instantly to an excruciatingly loud rustling sound. Perhaps fallen leaves. The audio quality was atrocious and the obnoxious howls of wind made it evidently seem like it was taken outside. Another high-pitched sound dominated the recording. It was a sort of whimpering, sounding almost like a wounded animal. It turned into a sobbing, of which I could only distinguish the words “Please, I have-”. A fast thud was followed by a gurgling sound. This marked the end of the recording.

I was beyond confusion at this point. And suddenly this wasn’t exciting nor comfortable anymore. I clicked on a random file just barely keeping alive that this might be an album by a band I loved. I opened Brian. This one was the shortest of them yet.

It also contained degrading wind movements, but this time there was the distant hint of a rushing sound. This could possibly be a sort of traffic. A single word pierced the soundscape in a yell, “Why-”. The recording was abruptly cut off.

I regretted ever clicking that link in the first place. And I’ve done it ever since. I immediately went back to the original reddit comment, just to find that it had been deleted. I searched for P4perface_Slagginz and to my great dismay found the profile no-longer existent.

Now they just sit there on my computer. There's seventeen of them in total.

Sebastian

Susanne

Elaine

Dori

Ahled

Gretta

Jeffrey

Matthew

Sophie

Brian

Julia

Kimi

Patrick

River

Clarise

Scotty

Lara

Ranging from (Brian) being around three seconds, to (Clarise) one hour fourteen minutes and fifty-six seconds. But they're all the same. Every single one.

A part of me thinks that file was never meant to be sent to anyone. Whomever Slagginz were, I think I know what they did. I truly wish I didn’t

If anyone is interested I’ll post some updates later. Maybe if I share these theories with someone else it becomes less of a burden. I’m gonna have to end the post here for now though. I’ve got to pick up a new spare at the locksmith. And I’m already running late.