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Boards of Canada's new Album and the possibility of more older music
Indie | Monday 17th June 2013 | jim
From 2000 up until 2005 Boards of Canada, a Scottish electronic duo, released three studio albums entitled: Music Has the Right to Children, Geogaddi, and The Campfire Headphase. Along with these three albums there were five different EPs, that stretched back as far as 1995. Since then though nothing has been heard from the pair that defined electronic and ambient music and have greatly influenced numerous artists today.
While not touring very often many of their songs are used in BBC programming such as Top Gear, and their single “Davyan cowboy” was also used in CSI: Miami.
As Pitchfork says while they did not invent a new sound, they did take the various strands of music floating around and pulled them into one place and perfected them. Since 2005, and the last LP by Boards of Canada, many artists could be described as ‘sounding like Boards of Canada’ from Burial to Chillwave. However, despite hearing a number of tracks and artists that sound like them, there has been nothing from the original creators.
That is until now. A few weeks ago Boards of Canada released their 4th studio album, Tomorrow’s Harvest. On record store day 2013, a vinyl containing a short clip of music that was believed to be the work of Boards of Canada surfaced. Warp records later vouched for the record’s authenticity.
Since its release the album has received good reviews. Despite having a seven-year gap the band seem to have started off again exactly where they left off. The album is an hour-long progression and exploration through ambient and downtempo chill-out songs. Pitchfork magazine gave the album 8.1 and placed it in their best new music section. However, Rolling Stones were slightly more negative suggesting “ it is full of intellect, but not nearly as much soul; like an artefact found in a glacier, it is impressive to behold, but cold to the touch.
The pair in an interview with Fact magazine though spoke of why there had been such a large break in time. They said that it was partly due to wanting to spend to collating and organising all the music they had created.
“[It was] just for ourselves really, to know that we could tidy it all up and hand it on to our kids someday, but there are literally thousands of tracks going way back into the ’80s. It’s a huge task, and this just seemed to eat up time.”
Hopefully this organisation does not just mean that only their kids will get to hear it. Perhaps there could be a mammoth compilation album in works sometime soon. Stoners and ambient fans alike rejoice there is finally new Boards of Canada music.
Written by Jim Roberts
