Forget Pink Floyd; Funk Band Apparently Syncs New Album With Disney's 'Sword In The Stone'

We're all familiar with the long-held view that Pink Floyd's seminal album, The Dark Side Of The Moon, synchronises with eerie accuracy alongside cinematic classic The Wizard Of Oz. People have spent countless hours in their usually addled quest to prove the intentional master plan behind the LP, regardless of how many times the band claim that any synchronicity between the two works is pure coincidence.

It mightn't matter anyway, as Brooklyn-based power-funk collective Turkuaz now appear poised to knock Pink Floyd from their pedestal, with fans of the band adamant that the nine-piece outfit's excellent 2015 album, Digitonium, perfectly aligns with another beloved piece of cinema history: the iconic Walt Disney flick The Sword In The Stone.

Why The Sword In The Stone? Well, it's not as arbitrary a choice as it might first appear — As Live For Live Music notes, first and foremost, even the album's title is a reference to the movie, with the word 'digitonium' popping up in the musical number Higitus Figitus, but it's not just that; throughout the album, lyrical references abound to characters and spells from the movie: "Uther", "Snick Snack Snorum", "Sir Ector" and so on.

But, then again, we've all heard of concept albums — so what makes the relationship between Digitonium and Sword In The Stone more than just tributary?

As far as we can tell, the earliest mention of a deeper connection between the works appeared on a Phish fan forum (because of course it did) on 8 October last year, a few days after Digitonium's release, when a user calling themselves "bosox424221" posted a thread in which they explained that "rumor has it that the new Turkuaz record … syncs up flawlessly with Disney's Sword in the Stone". They didn't provide any source or reasoning for that speculation, but it was clearly intriguing a prospect enough to get the internet talking and thinking about it, to look for a deeper link beyond simple lyrical nods and an obscure title.

Their work appears to have paid off; just under a week ago, another user, thisFunkinGuy, hit the Phish forum (no idea what it is about that userbase but we're kinda loving it) with a follow-up thread linking to a YouTube video he'd uploaded demonstrating the synchronicity between album track Lift It Up and the opening scene of the movie. Admittedly, it takes a bit to prove itself worthy of the notion of controlled confluence more than pure coincidence — a lot of the early matches are nuanced, incidental things such as sonic twinkles and other noises lining up with visual cues, or lyrical allusions to on-screen happenings — but if you're not utterly on-board with the concept by what we see at about 3:28 through 3:40, well, you're just being stubborn.

Meanwhile, another internet user calling themselves Merlin Wizard has produced a fully synchronised version of the film alongside Digitonium, and, it must be said, it's even harder to deny the obvious relationship between the two works in light of it. Seriously, what are the odds that the band would be singing the words "Animation" and "Orchestration" at the exact moment the animators' and orchestral credits appear at the start of the movie (during the album's first track, Introduction) if this wasn't all part of some grand plan? Or that it (and Lift It Up) both end in perfect synchronicity with scene changes?

The full match-up piece presently resides as an upload over at MediaFire, so if you've got a spare hour-and-a-bit — or just want to arbitrarily skip through the film to see if it all still lines up the further along it gets (spoiler: it does) — head this way.

Still not buying it? Well, while we don't blame you (Turkuaz are yet to explicitly comment on the theory that they meticulously lined up a solid 80 minutes of music with an ancient cartoon in the lofty hope that someone, anyone, might eventually notice), at least consider this teaser clip the band released back in July, ahead of Digitonium's release, and — in what appears to be an exceedingly sneaky nod to their ultimate end game — uses footage from none other than The Wizard Of Oz itself.

Well played, Turkuaz. Well played.

Digitonium is available on iTunes now. For more information about the band and their earlier work, see their Facebook page.