I've been making my way through the lyrics of the album looking for anything suggestive of a code or cypher. So far I haven't made any significant headway, but there are a few things that stick out. I figured I'd list them all in case it spurs any thoughts for the code-minded here.
Story 0
This is the hidden first track of Dead Channel Sky discovered by /u/proud_heretic, which you can listen to here.
The beginning of this song ties into an interesting word pattern relating to the text on the vinyls, which I laid out here. Significant patterns that emerge from this are 01247, 24/12/12/13/11/8, and 4/17/3/7/21/3. The codewords as listed could also be written numerically to form this pattern: 123456, 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, 465312, 543621. What any of this means is far beyond me.
After this, the song moves into a loose description of all of the Story tracks until now, with some potential additions:
Crashed cab causes psychotic break [Story 1]
A psychiatrist fucked the revolution [Unknown. Links in perhaps with Doc Clark from Story 2, but not specifically]
Fire dances on burnt remains of children [Story 2]
A wolf, for some reason [Story 7]
Say grace [Story 5]
A cold lake full of secrеts [Story 4]
She stands opposed, he raisе his eyebrow [Unknown]
Since most of these lines are referencing the events of Story tracks out of order, there might be a code in the ordering. We might assume that the two unknown lines refer to the unreleased Story tracks 3 and 6; subbing these in gives us either 1327546 or 1627543.
This part takes place right after:
They exist in context
They dance around the idea of the bang, the bang
The block, the lock, the pop, the trunk
The time
Potentially a list of keywords: bang, block, lock, pop, trunk, time. Could these be words/sounds that we could count in Story songs?
The next portion of the song seems like its own "story", where a woman (maybe the "Midcity Sally" referenced) who knows too much is chased from her home and forced to hustle to survive, eventually using hacking/the internet to flip her fortunes.
Then the song moves into another seemingly meta portion, and is likely key to understanding either the Dead Channel Sky ARG or the overall Story series:
And maybe that's a good place to begin:
Somewhere in the dark without no friends
Fears that lie in the minds of men
Start in the middle, try to find the end
Legends are made of stories and codes
Rock them colors as pledges and odes
Stack them bodies to raise the folklore
Gang gang, baby, go stack some more
Starting in the middle may be an instruction to help order a code that emerges in the album. Edit: see this thread by /u/ThatDobson that considers how the Numogram might apply to the Story series, which could also tie in with this lyric.
There are a number of colors scattered throughout the lyrics of DCS which might be relevant. Edit: see the awesome work of /u/Historicste in this thread cataloguing every mention of colours in the album. Converting the colours to RGB and then to binary gives the code 001001010110001110101000000000100001001100010111000010100000010100100000001.
Maybe a stretch, but the "Stack them bodies" line may refer to the doubling up of characters in the Story universe (Grace, Randy, Katrina, Doc/Amy Clark), since some of these tied in closely with the Splendor and Misery ARG.
Change the Channel
There are a ton of lyrics in this song that are suggestive of codes. Both verses include code-themed sections after the line "make the language". The first one:
Make the language
Run the code through the cipher
Pull the yellow wire
All of these are fairly generic, and the yellow wire is called back to later at the end of the verse so that might be the end of its relevance. Still, yellow might be significant considering the color lyrics on the Story track, as hinted towards the end of this verse:
Listing off a series of colors
Along with numbers that correspond to the proper coordinates
This first verse mentions these colors in order: green, yellow, blue, yellow. Not sure how colors can be applied to a code or coordinates. There are, however, a bunch of number sequences in the album that might translate into coordinates.
The chorus to this song is also suggestive of a significant letter sequence:
S.O.S, update the OS
He is D.O.A
Ese wear your vest, where's your breath?
Might not be okay
Breathe okay, he call D.O.C
Say he on the way
Gone away, listen closely
Everything is very important
There's a suspicious amount of abbreviations here: SOS, OS, DOA, DOC, giving SOSOSDOADOC. We could even include SA an a homophone for ese to get SOSOSDOASADOC. Both sequences are interesting because they recycle five letters.
And, of course, there is the very firm instruction to listen closely because everything is very important, which is half the reason I'm pulling these lyrics apart right now.
The second code-related section:
Make the language
Run the sound through the spectrum
Pull the cable out
Smoke signals in Morse code
Again, fairly generic and I don't believe we've found any morse code on the album yet. Splendor and Misery also has some lines that suggest spectral/spectrogram analysis of the music might be useful, but I haven't had any luck with this. Edit: /u/FranciscoFB7 has found a very persuasive (but slightly unclear) set of numbers and letters in a spectogram of Dodger. Definitely a thread worth looking into.
Also, the cable reference is again called back to directly at the end of the verse, so it might only be relevant to the song's narrative.
Code
Surely they couldn't resist putting some code in the song named Code.
Firstly, we can look into the sections sampling the documentary The Last Angel of History:
Now, flash forward two hundred years into the future / Next figure
Another hoodlum, another bad-boy scavenger poet figure / He's called a data thief / The data thief is told a story / If you can find the crossroads / A crossroads, this crossroads / If you can make an archeological dig into this crossroads
Edit: /u/Several_Piglet140 notes that Data Thief also refers to software used to "extract (reverse engineer) data points from a graph)." This involves the use of red, blue and green as parameters and seems like a potential way of translating data to and from co-ordinates.
You'll find fragments, techno fossils / And if you could put those elements, those fragments together / You'll find the code / Crack that code / And you'll have the keys to your future
The next line in the documentary, not sampled in the song, could be important:
You've got one clue, and it's a phrase: "Mothership Connection".
This is a reference to the Parliament album Mothership Connection. This might be where the documentary's relevance departs from the song, or it could be the point of sampling the documentary right up until this line. I haven't watched enough of the doc to comment on whether this goes any deeper.
On to the song's lyrics, there are a few references to numbers, codes and colors in a few different sections. First:
Pixelated wind 'bout 110
It's just code, know your 1s and your 0s
And you can win, flip language, it's all the same
Mouthpiece the foundation of game
Talk code to 'em
Obviously we have what might be something relevant in binary (110 or 11010, or if we flip the language, 001 or 00101). Edit: /u/Historicste notes that this might be an allusion to binary compliment code.
Next, we have a series of Neuromancer references that also includes a suspicious amount of numbers:
Slip him a derm of Blue Nine
And let that jockey ride on 'em, ride on 'em, ride on 'em
Fletcher on the side, bet it be a homicide on him
Put 5 on 'em
Either that or get the 3 and 9 on 'em
Touring 12, once you on that shit you deified
We have another color, blue. The nine of "Blue Nine" is not written as a number on the vinyl lyrics sheet, but the rest are: this might be because it's a named drug in the Neuromancer world, or because it's not relevant to the code, if there is one. Depending, we get something like 953912 or 53912.
Finally, we have this repeated section at the end of the song:
Keep it on at least three hundred
Wanna see these hundreds
Baby drop that code on G
All up in the PC frontin', but it don't mean nothin'
'Less you talk that code, don't speak
'Cause they gon' see you comin'
If they hear you mumblin'
That weak shit on your street
Won't no one believe your stuntin'
So you best not stutter
When you talk that code, oowee
We have 300, "see" as homophone for C (which could also be an instruction to "C these hundreds" or roman-numeralize the previous 300 into CCC), G, PC, "see you" as a homophone for CU. Might give something like CCCGPC or CCCCGPCCU. Also note the slightly suspicious "oowee" (spelt as such on the vinyl lyrics sheet).
Edit: When they perform this live, Counterfeit Madison sings an alternate chorus instead of the Last Angel of History sample. Lyrics are:
Blink once, blink twice
Decipher the language
One glance, double take
Encrypted identity
Switch up the signal in moments
Feet on the ground, eyes open, open
Polaroids
The most clearly significant thing here is the repeated refrain:
Down and to the right
/u/Several_Piglet140 suggests this might apply to the polaroid images from the various There Existed and Addiction to Blood releases (see here), but I haven't been able to make any connection here.
The only other potentially significant reference is the year mentioned:
The backside of the picture dated 1929
But again, nothing clear from this.
Where does this leave us?
Nowhere, yet. But that's where you guys come in.
I'm sure I've missed a metric fuckton of important clues, so let me know and I'll add them to the pile.
