Published in full

Case files

A case file takes one record and works it end to end — documented facts first, then what is observable in the work, then where interpretation begins. No account required to read any of them.

Rush Forensics · Case 004

2112

The awakening. Documented history, observable structure, IWL interpretation, counter-reading, contradictions and unresolved questions kept visibly separate.

Rush Forensics

Hold Your Fire

Rush · September 1987

Restraint, self-control, and the force held back. Force Ten, Time Stand Still, Lock and Key, Mission, Prime Mover, Second Nature, Tai Shan, Turn the Page, Open Secrets, High Water.

Genesis Forensics · Case 017

Duke

Genesis · March 1980

Performance, mediation, and the guiding voice. Behind the Lines, Duchess, Guide Vocal, Turn It On Again, Duke’s Travels.

The Deal · Case 001

Friend of the Devil

Grateful Dead · June 1970

The devil loans twenty dollars, takes the same twenty back, and vanishes. The opening file of The Deal — songs where a bargain is named in the text.

Four written, many more decoded. The written case files are the slowest part of the work. Meanwhile 1,293 songs already carry their decodes in the song index, and the Devil’s Den holds 150 filed transactions across 92 artists. What is missing is the written investigation, not the evidence.

Where the rest lives

The investigations — Rush, Genesis, The Police, Journey, Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd, Tool, The Who, and The Deal corpus
Song index — every decode, filterable by artist
Symbols — motifs that travel between catalogues
Decades — the same records placed by release year