boards of canada - the campfire headphase

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Has anyone heard Macquarie Ridge from the Japanese version of TCH? I can't believe BOC didn't include it on any of the other releases!

― Lardvarder, Sunday, 23 October 2005 17:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Yes - Macquarie Ridge is great, like an improved zoetrope...

― mattwp, Monday, 31 October 2005 22:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Is that available anywhere else? Download, maybe?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Album trend for indie-dance:

1st album: Groundbreaking yet highly popular debut that slowly but surely gains massive status.

2nd album: Weird, proggy, musically lush, experimental but alienates a lot of their original audience.

3rd album: Back to basics, a general chilling-out of the sound, but those who expected another giant sonic leap forward are disappointed at it's simplicity.

I cite: Daft Punk, Air, Boards of Canada off the top of my head.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 15:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Chemical Brothers?

― login name (fandango), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link

actually... that's a crap suggestion, ignore.

― login name (fandango), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Charlie find my review on Stylus - I analogued BoC with Sigur Ros. Same career-path.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link

fandango, as far as i know, i'd say it's true. To some extent I'd say the Prodigy did it too, although in a slightly different way.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Sigur Ros have never been indie-dance though.

The Chemical Brothers.. I guess they brought it on themselves with the vocalists they choose, but maybe they don't qualify for that tag either. At least not when they started.

― login name (fandango), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Nick, I'll be sure to read it when I actually get time to listen to the album properly. I can't believe I've been so slack but for fear of hearing a fake I thought I'd wait until I have a little money to go out and buy it rather than download it.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 17:41 (eighteen years ago) link

actually, i just read it anyway - really good review mate! makes me really wanna hear the album now!

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:16 (eighteen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

I just got this album!

― Dan (IT'S AWESOME) Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 21:38 (eighteen years ago) link

too bad nobody cares about it anymore

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 21:51 (eighteen years ago) link

just got it today and haven't listened to it yet. so that's at least two people who still care nyah

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link

i wasn't criticizing, i like the album. but it's just that boards of canada suffer from the same disease as the strokes. everyone freaks out when they release something new... for about a month.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 23:45 (eighteen years ago) link

People freaked out about the Strokes last album?

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link

I listened to this again the other day. "Dayvan Cowboy" is pretty awesome. Some lovely twinkly synths too.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 01:31 (eighteen years ago) link

hey, i totally forgot to get this album....
i guess i'll check it out now.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 02:31 (eighteen years ago) link

Grea great album, but it's true that I rarely feel compelled to put it on. It seems like it requires a very specific setting, e.g. sunset on the porch of a countryhouse in Maine.

― Baaderonixx ménage ses forces dans l'attente du Grand Soir (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 09:29 (eighteen years ago) link

it's still great but slightly yes than about a month ago. fading slowly away into the silence/past. i wonder if that has to do with the music ageing process they apply.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 11:40 (eighteen years ago) link

slightly less, what a typo!

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 12:18 (eighteen years ago) link

i bought. i listened. i was underwhelmed. i listened again. i was still underwhelmed.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 23:40 (eighteen years ago) link

okay so, i bought this after holding off from downlaoding

I'm sorry, but this is no fucking good for me. it's really like listening to the most watered down version of the boards. reading the pitchfork reviews didn't help. it's like a cross between the first savath and savalas album and moon safari. i don't listen to boards as a chilout band but that's what they've become

why are the noughties so much about subtlety?

― Carl Handwriting (dog latin), Friday, 2 December 2005 02:01 (eighteen years ago) link

get with Marcia Blaine School for Girls, people, it's where it's at, and been at, for you Boardz-hedz

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 2 December 2005 02:06 (eighteen years ago) link

only thing wrong w/ this record are the guitars -- you would think that they could do something more interesting with their sound instead of the compressed-tighter-than-a-crab's-ass sound that stinks up just about every recording these days. otherwise, it's a standard BoC record, which means it's a pretty fine thing to have.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 11:56 (eighteen years ago) link

For me the problem is all about the drum loops - they sound tired and uninteresting .. just sounds like a lame set of presets with little added, then again i cant compare as this was the first album of theirs i got to hear.

― mark e (mark e), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:13 (eighteen years ago) link

When i bought the album on i was hoping i had downloaded the fakes, then i heard the crappy guitar sound...

― a Side-walkin' Street Wheeler (aaron ef.), Monday, 5 December 2005 21:58 (eighteen years ago) link

i've been listening to this at 45 pitched down to -8, which actually kind of works

― Tate (Tate), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Every now and then I wonder if ILM posters are deaf and/or soulless.

― Dan (heh) Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:10 (eighteen years ago) link

pardon?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:15 (eighteen years ago) link

It's just that this album, like their previous two, is really, really, really great, soul-stirring music, only now people seem to be falling head over heels to distance themselves from it as if BoC have failed some obscure coolness test completely unrelated (or tangentially related at best) to the music they put out.

― Dan (ILM Pattern Of Behavior) Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:20 (eighteen years ago) link

sorry, you'll have to speak up a bit sonny. i can't hear a thing.

and why does the very centre of my being feel so ... empty ...

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link

pwned

― Dan (FISHED IN) Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:22 (eighteen years ago) link

I never really liked them, but I always figured they were pretty cool.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:22 (eighteen years ago) link

This album is, as they say, "a grow-er not a show-er". It has really grown on me, and seems best when you're writing and you just want something that flows.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:34 (eighteen years ago) link

yes this alb is def a grower (even if in places it does sound a lot like Tides by Arovane)

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Monday, 19 December 2005 17:34 (eighteen years ago) link

By this point, Boards of Canada just make Boards of Canada records. They've settled on their style, now they're just tweaking and modifying. Either you like it or you don't. I personally think the new album is a little slick and Zero 7-esque, without enough of the unsettling elements of their prior work, but it's still a fine record.

― Myke Weiskopf (Myke Weiskopf), Monday, 19 December 2005 23:22 (eighteen years ago) link

it's shit, i'm sorry. i really am. but it's shit.

― Carl Handwriting (dog latin), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 00:15 (eighteen years ago) link

"Peacock Tail" is immense, idn't it?

i've been thinking that this seems such a strange thing to say, since dayvan cowboy comes right after and out-immensifies it to bits (after the long intro)

― ronny longjohns (ronny longjohns), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 00:59 (eighteen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

The more I hear this record the more sure I become that it is one of the best records ever made. A bold claim I know, but I'm really starting to get the impression that BoC have done something really quite special. The ulrich schnauss comparison upthread is quite interesting as I head him for the first time last night and was pretty underwhelmed by its artificiallity and the tedium which each song descended into after a while, the beats in particular. The level of detail on each and every aspect of each and every one of the tracks on the campfire headphase, to my ear, is utterly unlike anything else I have ever heard. The really great thing about it is that it just doesn't sound like electronic music. I can't help but feel like I'm responding to it in a way that doesn't quite fit with anything else I've felt before.

the ultimate indicator of pre-release hype:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Boards-of-canada-Kaleidoscope-very-Rare-Warp-Skam-Aphex_W0QQitemZ4773127933QQcategoryZ9991QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

...um, it's a kaleidoscope (considering the highest bid so far, it must be a magic one.)

-- venimdenim (venimdeni...), October 2nd, 2005.

Not that I'm an expert on kaleidoscopes or anything but a friend of mine has one of these and it is absolutely beautiful.

― hmmm (hmmm), Saturday, 14 January 2006 18:25 (eighteen years ago) link

i really just don't get this album. it's soooo boring and sounds like a cheap late-90s "chill-out" record.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Saturday, 14 January 2006 18:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Ulrich Schnauss is awful compared to anything, never mind this record.

― fandango (fandango), Saturday, 14 January 2006 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Fair point, but he and BoC could be put into the same category. I think it would be a mistake to do so as there are a number of layers of additional complexity on TCH which raises it from 'chill-out' (although I think it can be listened to in such a way) to something else entirely.

― hmmm (hmmm), Saturday, 14 January 2006 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link

it just sounds completely unadventurous, especially compared to their previous output, to my ears and i've really tried to like it.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Saturday, 14 January 2006 18:58 (eighteen years ago) link

neil, you've convinced me to give it another go, certainly ...

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 14 January 2006 19:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Excellent. I am most glad.

Wogan - it may be the case that it is adventuring in ways other than those you are expecting or desiring.

― hmmm (hmmm), Saturday, 14 January 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link

It's their best record. It has their best tunes on it.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Saturday, 14 January 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't know if it's their best. It's the only one I really listen to at the moment. It is about detail, and it repays concentration and effort. Now I'm not saying all music should do that, but BoC seem to rely on these very precise sound textures more than most groups that they're usually compared to. I can see how superficially it might seem banal, but I keep coming back to Campfire and it keeps repaying me with new feelings or new experiences. And at the same time Nick is right because it's their poppest album. I think ditching (or hiding) the vocal samples was a smart move - that was the one trick from Music Has or Geogaddi that wouldn't have worked again.

― Sinister Oink Kingpin (noodle vague), Saturday, 14 January 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

"Peacock Tail" is immense, idn't it?

-- Nöödle Vägue (noodle vague), Thursday, 20 October 2005 20:11 (1 year ago) Link
Yes, yes it is.

-- Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 October 2005 20:21 (1 year ago) Link

I've just listened to this on repeat for about 3 or 4 hours whilst writing poetry. I've decided it might actually be better than Dayvan Cowboy. It. Is. Astonishing. One of the truly great chord-progressions.

― Just got offed, Monday, 13 August 2007 01:18 (sixteen years ago) link

This record is Ok. I think the lack of using the odd vocal samples is more telling than using a few guitar samples. BOC cutting up some odd vocal samples over some of their tracks was the icing on the cake. You take those odd ball "orange" out of there and the tracks are not quite as otherworldly. I think it is also possible that Boards of Canada felt like the using the cut up vocal samples was a bit of a crutch and went at these recordings with the idea of pull it off without using them.

― earlnash, Monday, 13 August 2007 03:42 (sixteen years ago) link

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