Gesicht in Music encoded

[_m3]

Back in the old days of vinyl records, pop groups like The Beatles and Black Sabbath were accused of sneaking satanic messages into songs, which could only be heard when the music was played backward.

Now it seems one of the world's most popular electronic musicians has discovered the modern digital equivalent.

Aphex Twin, who has been described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music," appears to have sneaked the digital image of a devilish face into at least one of his songs.

The spooky image of a creature with a diabolical grin has been accidentally discovered on Aphex Twin's Windowlicker EP, a 1999 hit.

The sinister face is revealed when the song is played on a computer through special software that visualizes sound waves.

Just like the backward messages on vinyl LPs, the face is secretly encoded in the actual sound waves of the music. It isn't a separate file on the CD. The image is the aural equivalent of steganography: the practice of hiding secret messages and watermarks in images.

http://www.tp.spt.fi/~cleth/projects...face/index.htm