Boards of Canada: Classic or Dud?

Tomorrow's Harvest gives me big end of the world vibes, so yeah, probably skipping that for now.

It's disconcerting at the best of times

Drinking in the sun on my terrasse in eerie silence brings strong ‘In a Beautiful Place..’ vibes

Played Tomorrow's Harvest while driving through Death Valley and the Mojave desert a month ago in February. It's definitely not an upper, but damn it sure does fit the scenery (which was influenced by them, of course - SF's cityline and the Mojave are the visual motifs for the record).

I wonder, is something brewing or is it just one of those periodic phases where the fanz are flapping their feathers...

Any potential clue dropped?

oh hey, happy saturday morning, BoC topic! you're looking well.

XP - Discussion is arising about an insta account, thought to be an official one, gone on a liking spree including liking any comments related to new music inquiries.

Unless they put out a total outta left field thing like a psych-pop vocal album (would love) I think that with “Tomorrow’s Harvest” they’ve done their duty for our current moment in time.

that's a rather bleak conception of "their duty". i'm not sure i've ever heard a record that was a more open invitation to mass suicide, and i've heard some of chris korda's records.

I had a church of euthanasia bumper sticker on my car for a good ten years & I'm still here

i'm not sure i've ever heard a record that was a more open invitation to mass suicide,
― Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, August 15, 2020 12:24 PM

This is intriguing. Care to expound?

xpost bleak times, soundtrack for

that s/b and xxpost to kate

I’d be so down for a soundcloud dump of early shit

no soundcloud dump, official release!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmOCvON8BuE

I need to go and listen to those 'A Few Old Tunes' comps again soon.

ah yeah of course! I got all those from the bocpages, whittled it down to the stuff I like. guess I just yearn for a galaxy of bocumas and skimming stones and carcans etc

White Cyclosa is one of their most unsettling tracks but also I reckon the main melody is the same as in this Stargate SG-1 cue.

Can be heard at 3:24 here:

https://youtu.be/FqqKJhN8fZo

This is intriguing. Care to expound?

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin)

i don't know how to expound. do you _not_ feel the crushing weight of utter and complete hopelessness, despair, and futility when you listen to it? do you check it out and go "yeah that's some sick jamz alright"?

Not exactly. . . but I guess I should say that I sort of get that vibe from most of BoC's music. Some of it less so, to be certain, but Tomorrow's Harvest doesn't strike me as especially so in that regard.

Sidebar, but I often consider it as maybe their best overall record. But that's like picking a favorite ice cream flavor for me; even my least favorites are still pretty good and satisfying.

Would very much love to hear some new music from them — especially this year. It would be fantastic if they did release new music and, through doing so, finally exposed the fact that they have been communicating with their home world with their music this entire time and the aliens finally show up. Because if that's going to be the case with any music makers out there, I want it to be them.

☺

All the crazy marketing stuff, pre Tomorrow's Harvest, was fun, I remember watching some live-streamed video clip that was broadcast from a screen near the Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, sharing in the excitement of the people that had gathered there to watch some daft little video snippet late in the evening.

Oh, and Elvis Telecom going out to the weird desert playback session too...!

It would be fantastic if they did release new music and, through doing so, finally exposed the fact that they have been communicating with their home world with their music this entire time and the aliens finally show up. Because if that's going to be the case with any music makers out there, I want it to be them.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin)

you and i are coming from very different headspaces, my friend

And you are still my friend, Kate. Isn't music wonderful?

thought this was a pretty good BoC rip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUILIt70MY

That YouTube clip is Celebrate, whatever that song's called. Recognised the Yahoo and then it used more and more of it.

If you have a copy of NI's Kontakt, the best BoC rip is getting any of the AudioWarp products and making your own

Oh, and Elvis Telecom going out to the weird desert playback session too...!

Seven years down the line, Tomorrow's Harvest is now one of my very favorite records. In my head it's superseded the collapse documentary soundtrack trappings and (I'll never describe this correctly) lifts up time's fabric from the continuum and gives you a look. My place in the overall scale of the universe might be tiny as hell but instead of despair, I get a brief rush of cosmic overview effect.

otm

I love Audiowarp, I have all of thems instruments.

I envy TH fans. I never ever managed to get into it, apart from one or two tracks. It always seemed very thin musically but I guess I’m the one missing out

i don't know how to expound. do you _not_ feel the crushing weight of utter and complete hopelessness, despair, and futility when you listen to it? do you check it out and go "yeah that's some sick jamz alright"?

― Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, August 15, 2020 1:22 PM (three days ago)

I definitely get this feeling when listening to it, but its despairing emotions are counterbalanced by beauty and mysticism for me, largely influenced by the setting of the album: California and its deserts. The cover is a forlorn and empty looking San Francisco cityscape as seen from Alameda. The music video for Reach For the Dead is filmed in or near the Mojave, which is where the secret location for the first listening party was. Driving around that desert and in places like Death Valley feel like a perfect setting for the album. You take in the overwhelmingly intense beauty and simultaneous desolation of what appears to be a post apocalyptic natural landscape simultaneously which completely fits the emotional bill of the record for me.

Considering the album's cover art, the band's affinity for the Oakland underground hip hop scene (remixes for Odd Nosdam and cLOUDDEAD) as well as their hippie tendencies, I often wonder if Oakland is their 2nd home or something

first time i connected with tomorrow's harvest was on a road trip through deserty places over the weekend. it's perfect for the road. i don't even know what really made it snap into place for me. it has a nice dynamic range so it sort of fades in and out over the sounds of driving. obviously very cinematic. i guess i just needed to find the right cinema for it. as far as crushing weight of hopelessness and despair goes, idk, i just admire that it doesn't flinch from the present - a virtue that i find strangely uplifting.

Tomorrow's Harvest is dreich and apocalyptic as fuck. Certainly unlike their other albums, but not without its merit. That said, I listened to the first album the other day and it's a lot bleaker and less colourful than how I remember

I’ve always heard them as pretty bleak, with a few very pointed exceptions: ROYGBIV, that celebratory pair in the middle of CH.

Even Beautiful Place is creepybeautiful.

my favorite mood of theirs is more ~hazy stoned meditative~ a la “wildlife analysis”, “olson”, “kid for today”

Aquarius has a really unique mix of funk/dark dreamy vibes/whimsey

Parts of Geogaddi scare me, like the samples about Branch Davidianism...

Parts of Geogaddi scare me, like the samples about Branch Davidianism...

In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country (the EP) is more beautiful than creepy and the best thing they've ever done imo. I like all of their albums tho, especially the first two for Warp.

Geogaddi terrifies me the most by a significant margin.

I do not get hopelessness from any Boards of Canada I've listened to

Me neither – it's too cartoonish for that (in a good way, of course).

Their sound, that is.

It’s not even that it’s cartoonish. With the possible exception of a couple of Geogaddi tracks I only half-remember, I do not hear anything remotely frightening, depressing, or oppressive in their music. In fact, I pulled out The Campfire Headphase this afternoon in response to the discourse on this thread and found it extremely relaxing, pleasant, and invigorating.

I once played Geogaddi at work and was told to "turn that spooky ghost shit off right now" lol

that's what's appealing about them though isn't it? their music is spoOoOoky without necessarily using the common signifiers of spooky music

In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country (the EP) is more beautiful than creepy and the best thing they've ever done imo.

Every couple years I read praise like this, give the EP another try, and wind up scratching my head. To me it's utterly boring.