Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest (2013)

Shadows are consistent...

You wouldn't expect one of the Boards to wear their hat at a jaunty angle.

I listened to new one once and then never felt like putting it on again (maybe also because it didn't really scream summertime)
it might be me becoming boringly middle age but I think these days my favorite would be the reviled Campfire (+ EP). For me it really sounds like a sunny winter day - ie my favorite kind of days.

The last one (Campfire) was their most 'rock' in terms of having guitars and the way the melodies developed, but I don't think either of those things were bad moves for them to make; it's a really good record. I enjoy the new one a lot, (if enjoy is the right word) especially Palace Posy, but not much of it has stuck in my head. But neither did most of Geogaddi or MHTRTC (apart from Roygbiv). All their albums bar Campfire have needed significant time to bed-in for me, and it's still early days with this one in the scheme of things.

I hate Campfire Headphase. This one is good for sort of just walking around with headphones on. I'm sort of looking forward to the frosty autumn months to dig it out again so I can go for long walks through leafy woods.

weird - for me Campfire is the perfect thing to listen to during long walks through leafy woods.

'hate' is a very strong word. Why?

It is a strong word, but I've said why I dislike it a few times on ILM in the past. In short, it's the album that came very close to ruining BoC for me. The carefully constructed sense of intrigue they'd built up around themselves until that point was pretty much dashed against the rocks by it. It contained very little of the edginess/queasiness that I liked about the first two albums and opted for this drippy hippy building society vibe with acoustic guitars and lush spa-day production that rubbed dead-against the grain of their aesthetic. It reminds me of being on-hold to my internet service provider. It sounds like a sports car in a tropical fishtank and while one might argue that there's nothing wrong with that (I like albums like Moon Safari for pretty much the same reasons I dislike Campfire Headphase), it's not what I wanted from BoC. If anything I'd have preferred them following up Geogaddi with something even darker and more cryptic instead of that fluff.

I recognise barely any of that, and I suspect it says far more about you than it does about the record, given that every pejorative you've rolled out feels very subjective. Which is fair enough - this is music, after all - but seems a little disingenuous, somehow.

Out of interest, what release introduced you to them?

Yeah I don't know - I find the rock/guitar thing exagerated. Does "Slow that Bird Down" sound that different to previous albums?
I do get how Campfire feels somehow more sunny but to me it retains the core element of BoC's sound - that sense of pastoral wonder.

sorry xp (in my case I think it was geogaddi)

MHTRTC, back in 1998. I was onboard early!

Cool. I guess it was always the darkside/lightside contradiction in their music that I liked over pastoral pleasantness. There was an 'occult' (I guess I'm forced to call it "hauntological" now) aspect to the first two albums (and In a Beautiful Place Out In the Country) - hidden messages, clues, easter eggs - a feeling of trepidation that by listening to BoC you were somehow being given a glimpse of something you ought not be. It felt (from the album and interviews at the time) that not only were BoC abandoning this, but were also working to denounce it. It's a bit like the Residents suddenly going 'you know, all that anonymity and theatre was daft, we're just going to play Oasis covers in the pubs now'.

See I was happy to just absorb that as a sense of atmosphere on MHTRTC, rather than something deep to buy in to, and then by Geogaddi it seemed to have become far more prominent, and to my mind the tunes suffered from it. I've never liked Geogaddi all that much. So when they deliberately swerved left of that with CH I was pleased, because it had the raw tunes but still within that aesthetic. And I'm always pro demystification!

I think it's disingenuous to denounce CH too hard as "music for stockbrokers" or whatever, though; yes, it's more accessible than Geogaddi, but it's hardly like they went out and made a bland trip hop record, it's still a strange, unsettling experience.

can we stop talking about Boards of Canada like they're Merzbow

a sports car in a tropical fishtank

I thought we were talking about them as if they were George Michael?

I've got a couple of Tomorrow's Harvest tracks on a compilation and always enjoy them but it's definitely the album I feel least compulsion to play (and there's no obvious reason for that).

The fact that we're all different people to who we were 8/11/15 years ago?

"nothing is real" might be the most boc-like boc track.

x-post. Yes, that.

Just as counterpoint, Campfire Headphase was the first BoC album I heard and is still my favorite of theres. I never had any earlier listening history with them, I guess I'm one of those "stockbrokers" that digs the sound, but it was the first forward-thinking electronics+guitar album that got my attention since those Global Communication/Chapterhouse remixes.

Still listening to Tomorrow's Harvest a lot - mostly when programming fwiw.

I've heard all four full-lengths in the order they were released. I'd say Music Has the Right and Campfire Headphase are my favorites; I'd take both over Geogaddi, which felt a little too woozy and choppy for me. In the years since Campfire came out, that's the one I've probably reached for most.

New one hasn't really clicked for me, but I honestly haven't spent much time with it. It did sound nice while I was falling asleep last night.

Re-issue lp's in the mail to me now!

Tomorrow's Harvest is my new favorite record to listen to while driving through America's southwestern deserts.

Where's the best (cheapest) place to order the reissues? Anybody doing special items (stickers, post cards etc)?

I dunno, despite not returning to it much, the new one for me thematically clicks in a similar way to Music Has the Right. Whereas the first was a reflection on childhood, psychedelia and nostalgia in the post-rave moment, they rework the dread and unsettling elements of their sound along with the retro-aesthetics seems really well in Tomorrow's Harvest with a kind of persistent dark imaginary around ecological issues, especially the return to entropic themes within cybernetics from Limits to Progress to contemporary anxieties around climate change and disastrous pursuit of surplus. I didn't really grasp that kind of unified theme in Geogaddi or Campfire Headphase.

Of course, that's a very conceptual way to approaching the records tho.

Got mine right from Bleep. I believe they came with some sort of sticker set.

http://thevinylword.info/boards-of-canada-25-off/#sthash.2kwXyEA4.dpbs

25% off at Insound, this week only (until Oct 21st) - don't know where they're based though, USA?

Wow, Insound still exists?

thanks. went ahead and ordered the LP bundle from Bleep.

Almost exactly one year later, something seems to be happening @ adult swim :

https://twitter.com/adultswim/status/459795172101210112/photo/1

( not exactly the same as this background but possibly suspicious : https://twitter.com/boctransmission )

I got into BoC big time because of Tomorrow's Harvest. I love their sounds, but I can't shake the feeling that some of the songs would be all too appropriate in films of the adult variety.

like mature relationship dramas

good i hope they make 3 records a year now

They could if they wanted to, they're sitting on enough good material

geogaddi sessions plz kthxbye

o..u have a new 'transmission' ? .. on adult swim?? wow

just put it out this shit isnt fun anymore

But it'd spoil their mystique

was not fun the 1st time either

False alarm.

https://twitter.com/adultswim/status/460499565909512192

Do you think these guys have day jobs? I'm just curious about the economics of releasing music so infrequently and not being a touring group. I guess there's a lot of licensing?

you get paid a lot for music used in mainstream TV & ads, something they've had a lot of success with. plenty of tunes were used in Top Gear for example, which is shown on repeat worldwide, and you get paid for every repeat via PRS and the like. my dad knows a guy who wrote the theme tune to a popular kids TV show that was sold worldwide, he never has to work again apparently.

how have i not posted on this thread

beautiful, beautiful album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAtv1gdLTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1zvjb9LBM