Boards of Canada: Classic or Dud?

'music has the right' took a while for me to love. much of it is classic but there are some boring parts. roygbiv is, of course, the highlight.

the best thing though is probably happy cycling on the peel session (is this on the US version of 'music has...'?)

i disagree about plone though, fernando. i think plone work when they are overly twee and fisher-price like, but too often (on the patchy album) they try and sound darker, or more ambivalent, or go the cod- morricone way, and it doesn't work.

Boc have done some beautiful songs (the last single was wonderful too), and i think its a bit of a shame that they often get categorised as 'smokers music' (which is pretty harsh criticism)

I'd have agreed with you about Plone once, Gareth, but now I find those tracks *unlistenably* twee; I can't get more than a minute into "Marbles" without choking, and don't get me started on "Bibi Plone". Conversely, "Busy Working", "The Greek Alphabet" and "Top And Low Rent" sound better to me than they ever did.

K-reg hits the nail on the head, as often, I think.

elliot

What better comparison point for a band who call a track "M9"?

and into a world where synthesizers coexist with hundred-year-old willow trees.

-----

love this. Also the term 'soccer children' = beautiful, somehow very BoC. Ah well, that used to be me ;)

Since one of my earlier threads seems to have been resuscitated, I'll just add that I probably rate BoC higher in terms of *magic realism* than I ever have. I can sort of see where Billy's coming from with the ISB comparison, as well: if you're looking for the halfway point, Bill, I'm waiting with a C90 of "The Fourth Dimension" ...

The 70's BBC children's television series, The Changes, is an
indisputable influence for MHTRC. Robin Carmody is well aware. His BBC Radiophonic Workshop essay is outstanding.

IABP and Geogaddi are minor shifts in the BoC sound. The whole David Koresh theme is creepy, but I love it.

I say they're ace, hands-down, CLASSIC. They make beautiful textures, tones, and melodies with very few synths and outdated samplers and that is no simple feat!

Any ILXors ever been to the Pentland Hills area or met the BoC or any of the music70 collective?

Boards of Canada = Near Classic; depends on what they do next.

re: the "british sound" as mentioned above: stirmonster (v. occasional glaswegan ILM poster) once mentioned elsewhere [heavy paraphrase ahead] that he found the prettiness of BoC's music a sharp contrast to the dreadful starkness of the north coast of scotland.

Not in the north of Scotland though, just next to Edinburgh. The Pale Saints recorded some of their records near there.

anyhow, classic, "geogaddi" included.

in some ways i think much of their back catalogue is a bit tainted by the beats. as in, they seem unnecessarily leaden. they certainly date the records to a particular time period (its less apparent on geogaddi i guess). i like pretty much everything still, but the beats detract for me, or, at least, are the worst parts of most of their stuff

i can't think of many examples of tracks where the beat seems a real problem to be honest - anyone have any specific examples? it seems like a bit of a shot in the dark otherwise. i can think of many examples where the heaviness of beat compliments what else is going on - 'Whitewater' from 'Boc Maxima' for example - but i can see what is meant by the suggestion that more could've been done with the beats - they just come in and seem to trundle from A to B without varying much of the time, but somehow they manage to seem quite deft rather than leaden (Orange Romeda! Amo Bishop Roden!). it may just be the tempo of most BOC songs that makes the beats seem leaden rather than the sounds used to construct them (muffled, dirty, retro - to match the overall sound).

i think the drums on something like Mort Garson's Plantasia would have been a better approach

i nearly always find the beats a welcome addition, and BOC always seem to have valued electronic rhythm to a fair extent and they tend to prefer it heavy. it's usually one of the last things to come in, which can give the impression the track has been built to support the beat rather than the other way round, no? which is an understandable criticism if true, only i don't hear it as a big problem myself - i don't think it would make a significant difference to how i hear BOC. 'ROYGBIV' seems as good an example as any of the beat being useful, if only for the bit where the bassdrum drops out again just for 4 bars - that's possibly the best bit, but it couldn't work without the beat beforehand.

how about Autechre or Biopshere? do their beats sound better because they're complex or 'modern', or 'lighter'?

what are the drums on 'Plantasia' like (hint)?

It’s pretty coincidental; I listened to Music again last night and it didn’t work for me as well as it usually does. (I believe) I too felt the beats slightly lacking. But hey, some of my favourite moments are things happening to the beats. There is a wonderful bit in ‘Kid For Today’ where the heavier beat enters and plays two snares in a row (so that one is on the spot of a bass drum). And the lo-fi drums at the end of ‘Aquarius’. And the fantastic beat fucking in ‘Pete Standing Alone’. And the sonically beautiful drums in ‘Roygbiv’, ‘Turquoise Hexagon Sun’, ‘Last Walk Around Mirror Lake’... yeah, they’re not so bad after all.

^^yes

i think i genuinely love how this manages to sound extremely menacing but also very clean, like a vision of hell in total focus

― ivy., Saturday, May 30, 2026

Naraka feels maybe more resolute than the previous tracks and more ominous but it also has the same very clearly defined cinematic quality

I love that it's followed by the murk and buzzing flies and birds and dark intimations of menace on the short track Acts of Magic... and also then with a cardiac monitor, sighing voices and a sense of resignation on Memory Death. Not sure what it all means

i think i genuinely love how this manages to sound extremely menacing but also very clean, like a vision of hell in total focus

― ivy., Saturday, May 30, 2026

Naraka feels maybe more resolute than the previous tracks and more ominous but it also has the same very clearly defined cinematic quality

I love that it's followed by the murk and buzzing flies and birds and dark intimations of menace on the short track Acts of Magic... and also then with a cardiac monitor, sighing voices and a sense of resignation on Memory Death. Not sure what it all means

I only posted that once, sorry

uh, let's see, I've lost track

I love that it's followed by the murk and buzzing flies and birds and dark intimations of menace on the short track Acts of Magic... and also then with a cardiac monitor, sighing voices and a sense of resignation on Memory Death. Not sure what it all means

― Dan S, June 22. 2026

This section brings to my mind those crazy "synchronizer" session sequences in Boorman's Exorcist II.

I thought it was a bit odd that people found the religious theme of the album to be too 'on the nose' for them or whatever, as far as I know none of their stuff references mainstream religion much. the Hare Krishna part is something they never would've done in the past. it makes this album spooky in a different way.

also interesting they didn't use any kid voices on this one. obviously there weren't any on Tomorrows Harvest either but it comes off different here since there are plenty of other voices on it. you do faintly hear one on one of the last tracks though, the bit where it sounds like the universe folding onto itself

anyway right now I do think this is the best BoC album

I don’t know maybe we have different interpretations of what “on the nose“ means. To me in the past any sort of societal critique by board of Canada seems to have been subsumed under oblique references, like the Branch Davidian references that most people would only understand if you read the internet obsessively, (even in the artwork of A Beautiful Place Out In The Country). where here, and I’m including the album artwork, it’s rather out in the open.

I don't mean things I'm reading here I mean the initial reaction I heard from some people, "oh, another album about God and religion"...I don't think any of their albums have really been about that

ah

really, if anything is on the nose it's our current reality, in better times we'd be all talking about oblique references on the new BoC album

yeah, true, we live in unsubtle times

yeah unfortunately the excitement of knowing we were probably getting a new BoC album was undercut a bit by Donald Trump threatening to end an entire civilization on Truth Social

“You Retreat in Time and Space” is reminding me intensely of the Aeon Flux animated show today

Maybe there’s a bit of end of Mega Man 2 also

I think this album benefits more than any other BoC from a good subwoofer. I'm almost enjoying Father and Son right now.

As far as distinct moments go, the part when the guy says “Capricorn” and, in the word becomes flesh, “A vigorously beating heart is pumping blood” are some of my favourite BoC flourishes.

Word Becomes Flesh is an absolute banger, it's "at this stage" for me

i love the little “glerp” glitchy speech mutoid that finishes father and son

also there is a track that sounds like it has breathing or wind noise on one speaker low in the mix for a few seconds, creates a wonderful effect

the sheer density of this record is overwhelming, a beautiful achievement

also while loving BoC deeply i have always been pretty bad at remembering track titles - and even picking out individual tracks, often their LPs kind of float by in a haze for me - but i know every track on Inferno by name, each one takes you somewhere so distinct

anyway still loving this Lp but also trying to not overplay it

listening to it the other night it struck me as a profoundly sad album

Yeah

Their last two have been profoundly sad, for sure. Father and Son is almost too short for me now... when it cuts out it's almost a bummer; feels like it's just getting warmed up.

Yeah beyond the first week of this coming out where I listened to it over and over I've kind of been microdosing this album. I don't know the individual named of the tracks. And not because I don't like it. I just don't want to get used to it. I want to come back to it and hear new things

+1 re. the bit where the man says “Capricorn”. Feels like such a revelatory beyond the veil moment. Even tho I have no clue what this is is about and that meaningless enticing-ness might be the whole point of the song/album

Absolutely loving the DJ Food 'Early Hours' mix.

Couldn't find if this was mentioned already, but went to see Backrooms at local cinema today and was surprised to hear The Word Becomes Flesh over the end credits.

Is this a good time to mention that my favorite BoC track (Poppy Seed) isn't ominous or spooky, it has the melancholy 70s thing going but it's just ... a drive back from a camping trip through towering pines. A road they didn't take, probably would have been less fruitful than the one they ended up on, but gorgeous.

I almost like the reprise better!

Btw Poppy Seed is a remix of a Slag Boom Van Loom track.

The reprise was my alarm for a few years!

xp yeah since I've never come across that band anywhere else I've chosen to believe that it was made up so all those artists could do an album together

the reprise is great

If I were to rate them atm I’d probably rate Inferno in a top 3:

In a Beautiful Place… EP
MHTRTC
Inferno

If Eps don’t count then above geogaddi.

xp it's a collab between Speedy J and Mike Paradinas. It aged poorly almost upon release.

https://slagboomvanloon.bandcamp.com/album/slag-boom-van-loon

Everyone remembers the remix album more for the BoC tracks but some other remixes on it are great too, like Four Tet, Pole, and Matmos's..

Yeah I really like the Tipper and Matmos remixes especially on that

omg lukas thank you for recommending poppy seed rmx/reprise - had a pretty good day today and wrapping with blissful unheard (to me) BoC was just perfect

it is well