Albums that sound similar to Boards of Canada

See, I don't know a lot of the records people are recommending as better than the Boards, though I know some, and lots of them are probably great, but I think BoC still seem pretty distinctive to me, and the two albums are still very special for me. Some things that seem special about them include: the microtonal textural warp effect all over Geogaddi, obviously the use of NFB film samples (which might resonate more to someone who grew up with that stuff), and, related to that, as I suggested, the sort of mainstream 70s keyboard sounds, the way that buried voice samples are used, and the way that these are all incorporated with simple, memorable hooks and song structures, as well as the overall sequencing of the albums. The overall emotional characters seem unique to me too. I love Pole's first as much as anyone but it has more of an urban, "dark alley in the rain" feel to it. The Boards, and maybe I'm just influenced by the cover art here, are more like primary colours out of focus, weird blurred half-memories, softer and more meditative than any MoM or Plaid I know (and there's a lot I don't) as well.

To answer the actual question, I don't think it's better per se but Building Castles Out of Matchsticks have some similar qualities with a more 80s (synthpop) as opposed to 70s feel - the contrasts between murk and clarity, the simple pop hooks, the buried voices, some of the emotional qualities. "This Could Be the One That Makes It" was possibly my favourite track of the year it came out. There's another page here.

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dude you can't assign value to "emotion"! that's totally ridiculous! it's an empty signifier.

You can't? People who criticize IDM are constantly saying that it is to abstract and has too little emotion. But if you want to use a proper art critique word, replace "emotional" with "expressionist". ;) I don't, however, think I was actually assiging value to "emotion"; what I was saying is that BoC try to convey a certain set of emtotions, and in my opinion there are other artists within the same genre who convey similar emotions with a more original style.

If we take your criticism of assigining value to emotion a bit further, you can't really assign value to anything in instrumental music, can you? You can try to think what sort of a thing an artist wants to convey through his music, and whether he manages to do that within the stylistic tools he has decided to use, but that's it. You can say that he didn't quite manage to get through what he was trying to say, or that he didn't pick the right tools to so, but you can't judge neither his intentions nor his chosen style per se. Which would make discussions like this meaningless. However, people still want to talk about music, and that's perfectly okay - we don't have to apply to philosophical rules, as long as the discussion stays interesting.

See also: Mark Bell's work on the Dancer In The Dark Soundtrack.

good choice Disco Nihilist, The title song on Geometry gets me hard. Their new lp is excellent 2, first track is nuts, like to see prefuse crap that out.

I am totally loving New World Observer by Deadbeat. It is totally OT tho...

Lone, the Californian BOC?
Lemurian LP sounds pretty good
http://www.bleep.com/current_item.php?selection=DMLONECD010_DM

oh he's from the UK

Bocuma natch

http://bocuma.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jgy2uxUXr4

Justin Walter's Unseen Forces

Well... a little bit. It's the electronic valve instrument sound that reminds me of it. Either way this is a great LP.

'Tidal Patterns' by Kinbrae.

https://kinbrae.bandcamp.com/album/tidal-patterns

*nerd voice* Most BoC worship sounds garish and point-missing, imo... not monochrome enough! the ambient interludes machinedrum had on his early glitch-hop stuff really succeeded in taking off from that one of a kind BoC eerie/warm smeared sound/vibe...

tyrants by dawn richards sounds a lot like Boards

this shares some dna but from a different section in the booklet

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

boulderdash - we never went to koxut island

https://boulderdash.bandcamp.com/album/we-never-went-to-koxut-island

i was really into this one back in the day, it's from 2000 and very BoC-alike. has finally showed up on bandcamp, i couldn't find it anywhere for ages.

I've often thought that about that Dawn track.

good stuff. Id say this was probably BoC influenced or at least mines some similarly hazy atmospherics.

LNRDCROY - Much Less Normal

https://1080pcollection.bandcamp.com/album/much-less-normal

You could argue that this walks over the line between 'sounds like' and 'somewhat beholden to...' but I really like it just the same.

https://citiesofearth.bandcamp.com/

this is nice: https://www.discogs.com/Boreal-Network-Itasca-Road-Trip/release/8207976

this is nice: https://www.discogs.com/Boreal-Network-Itasca-Road-Trip/release/8207976🕸