Boards of Canada: Classic or Dud?

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 They make beautiful textures, tones, and melodies with very few synths and outdated samplers and that is no simple feat!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.

as for BoC, they're like one of those artist everyone Loves and is influenced by, but justifiably. I Love Boards Of Canada, and I don't care what anyone thinks.

But I'll say that some of their tunes stick in the head alarmingly well for 'ambient' music. Is there a reason I haven't gone and re-investigated them since? Yes, it's that I actually find their music a little creepy and disturbing.

Yeah, this is one of the greatest things ever.

anyone heard this Cardamar remix of ROYGBIV?

nopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

i think this is one of those bands that more than others, sometimes they are just EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED

I need a new album from these guys

missed this when the album came out but can be listened to now - looks cool

https://www.djfood.org/dj-food-i-hear-the-sun-an-inferno-promo-mix

I listened the other day on Apple Music. Decent, but for me its best moments were the songs from Inferno. Love DJ Food, though.

I’m getting the sense that the robotic deep bass voices and other computer voices on their new album are the most controversial aspect of it. I can see how those may seem outdated and may be alienating and off-putting, but I feel like they serve to sweep us into a very real undertow dream state.

Boards of Canada have always been interested in outdated sounds

There is a lot of occult stuff. On “Age of Capricorn” there is a reference to Mabus, a 16th Century figure from Nostradamus who is supposed to represent the antichrist

“Father and Son” is such a fascinatingly weird track. Apparently the lyrics in multiple robotic voices from that track come from an actual recorded interview exchange between a father and son, where the father is wanting to drag his son out of the Children of God cult (the same cult in which Christopher Owens from Girls grew up)

It's about the son being resistant to any reason or persuasion. A metaphor for our current world

xp For me the surprise was how front and center (and in Father and Son, unmanipulated) many of the samples were, rather than buried in the mix or just as rhythmic punctuation (“orange”) as previous.

I hear the rhythmically sequenced robot voices as electro. An influence they and other Warp/Rephlex guys have always worn proudly. I don't know why anyone would dislike those more on this album.

i don’t

was BoC ever POLLed?

― scanner darkly

No, but we might as well - they're probably done for another 10 years at least, if not ever.

it is apt that BoC fandom has become a religious cult

I love them, but I love the Lord - more than any physical being

actual lol

I might need to revisit their old stuff but what also strikes me as novel is the pure musicality of the sampled voices. The Father and Son voices are driving the rhythm of the song, while in other songs the samples nearly play the role of a top line melody. Totally love this album

cf Telephasic Workshop

FYI re: "Father & Son"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DQvNlXZhl4

was BoC ever POLLed?
― scanner darkly

No, but we might as well - they're probably done for another 10 years at least, if not ever.

― octobeard, Saturday, 20 June 2026 04:22 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes please!