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Boards of Canada released a four-track [[Extended play|EP]] ''[[In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country]]'' in November 2000, their first original release in two years. The title had come from a recruiting video made by the [[Branch Davidian]]s. The song “In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country” features the repeated vocals "Come out, and live in a [[Religion|religious]] community in a beautiful place out in the country." Another, “Amo Bishop Roden”, is named after the Branch Davidian member of the same name. The full-length album ''[[Geogaddi]]'' was released in 2002. It was described by Sandison as “''a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again.''” The album has a darker, more complex, and fuller sound than ''Music Has the Right to Children''.
Boards of Canada released a four-track [[Extended play|EP]] ''[[In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country]]'' in November 2000, their first original release in two years. The title had come from a recruiting video made by the [[Branch Davidian]]s. The song “In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country” features the repeated vocals "Come out, and live in a [[Religion|religious]] community in a beautiful place out in the country." Another, “Amo Bishop Roden”, is named after the Branch Davidian member of the same name. The full-length album ''[[Geogaddi]]'' was released in 2002. It was described by Sandison as “''a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again.''” The album has a darker, more complex, and fuller sound than ''Music Has the Right to Children''.


Michael Sandison's first child, a girl, was born in July of 2004. Boards of Canada members Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin currently live a few miles outside [[Edinburgh]], [[Scotland]], in the [[Pentland Hills]].
Michael Sandison's first child, a girl, was born in July of 2004. Boards of Canada members Michael and Marcus Sandison currently live a few miles outside [[Edinburgh]], [[Scotland]], in the [[Pentland Hills]].


Their third album for Warp, ''[[The Campfire Headphase]]'', was released on [[17 October]] [[2005]] ([[18 October]] in the United States).
Their third album for Warp, ''[[The Campfire Headphase]]'', was released on [[17 October]] [[2005]] ([[18 October]] in the United States).

Revision as of 04:35, 31 March 2006

Boards of Canada
File:Bocf1.jpg
Background information
Years active1987 – present
MembersMichael Sandison
Marcus Eoin Sandison

Boards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo comprised of brothers Michael Sandison (b. 10 June 1969) and Marcus Eoin Sandison (b. 21 Sep 1970). They have released a number of works, most notably Music Has the Right to Children and Geogaddi, with little advertising and few interviews. Their sound has frequently made reference to sounds of the 1970s and the 1980s. It recalls, amongst other things, the warm, scratchy, artificial sounds of 1970s television, and indeed, band members Eoin and Sandison admit to being inspired by the documentary films of the National Film Board of Canada, from which the group's name comes. The duo have recorded a few minor works as Hell Interface.

Early Boards of Canada (1970s-1995)

Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison experimented with creating music together through their teens. Growing up in a musical family, they began playing instruments at a young age, and experimenting with recording techniques at around 10-years-old. Using tape machines they experimented with laying cut-up samples of found sounds over compositions of their own. Although they had made music together as children, "Boards of Canada" did not exist until much later. It was later revealed in an interview by Pitchfork Media that Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin are actually brothers [1]. They had choosen to keep it a secret for fear of people making comparisons between them and Orbital, another electronic music group created by two brothers. Before the release of this information, it was largely assumed that Boards of Canada were created by nothing but two friends who both shared a love of music.

The band would have a nebulous roster throughout its history, encompassing at least fourteen different core members and an unknown number of collaborators.

Boards of Canada have said they “began writing and playing music in a more serious way at some point around 1987”. They go on to say, “At first, we experimented without setting ourselves any questions, with whatever means were available to us, then we worked a lot with other musicians and with real instruments, which brought more complexity into our music. Five years ago (1993), we sounded a lot more gothic, much closer to experimental rock, with the occasional vocal. Though it was heading for electronic music; already we were sampling our own instruments. Then we went back to something closer to our original spirit: simple and instinctive, the only difference being that from then on, we could use all the wonders of digital technology, and so it was a lot easier to experiment and to get what we wanted” [2].

By 1989, the band had been reduced to Michael, Marcus and Chris, who was the group's third member until 1996 [3]. In the early 1990s, a number of collaborations took place and the band was putting on small, fairly regular shows among the “Hexagon Sun” collective. In early 2000, the official website for the band, Music70.com, has removed the early discography of Boards of Canada, some information has been preserved by fans. The early tape releases of the band include “Play By Numbers”, “Acid Memories”, “Hooper Bay” and the earliest known release by the band is titled “Catalog 3.” None of the material from those days is readily available, and judging from the facts that the official BoC sources ignore the very existence thereof, those releases are little hope for the early music of the band to ever be released in future times.

Boards of Canada from Twoism (1995-present)

Twoism was released in 1995 on their own Music70 label. It was a self-financed cassette and LP distributed privately. Though not a widespread commercial release, it was considered of such high quality to be subsequently re-pressed in 2002 and serves as a demarcation point into more professional releases. Also in that year, their Edinburgh studio was christened Hexagon Sun.

The precursor to Music Has the Right to Children was released in 1996. Titled Boc Maxima, it was a semi-private release that is notable for being a full-length album. Boc Maxima's work was later used for Music…, with which it shares many songs, though there were also a number of additions and subtractions. Boards of Canada's first commercial release occurred after attracting the attention of Autechre's Sean Booth of the English label Skam Records, one of many people sent a demo EP. Skam released what was considered their first "findable" work, Hi Scores, in 1996. Prior to that, their distribution had been limited to a small number of releases (mostly cassette-only) passed among friends and family.

Another collection of prior and new songs was released as the seminal full-length album that many consider to be their real debut, Music Has The Right To Children, in 1998. Many consider this record to be a masterpiece, while others point out that much of its tone has been obviously inspired from other Warp Records luminaries, such as Autechre. Nevertheless, the popularity of the record was substantial enough to start a wave of “sound-alikes," a few of which went on to find their own sound and become established in their own right.

John Peel featured Boards of Canada on his BBC Radio 1 program in January of 1998. The session featured two remixes from Music Has the Right to Children—“Aquarius (Version 3)” and “Olson (Version 3)”—along with the tracks “Happy Cycling” and “XYZ”. “Happy Cycling” was later edited and appended to the United States release of Music Has the Right To Children (1999, Matador), and to the subsequent worldwide re-release in 2004 on Warp. Excluding “XYZ”, the set was released on a Warp Records CD titled Peel Session.

Boards of Canada also performed live a few times, once at the Warp Records 10th Anniversary Party, then the Warp Lighthouse Party and finally during the 2001 All Tomorrow's Parties festival.

Boards of Canada released a four-track EP In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country in November 2000, their first original release in two years. The title had come from a recruiting video made by the Branch Davidians. The song “In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country” features the repeated vocals "Come out, and live in a religious community in a beautiful place out in the country." Another, “Amo Bishop Roden”, is named after the Branch Davidian member of the same name. The full-length album Geogaddi was released in 2002. It was described by Sandison as “a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again.” The album has a darker, more complex, and fuller sound than Music Has the Right to Children.

Michael Sandison's first child, a girl, was born in July of 2004. Boards of Canada members Michael and Marcus Sandison currently live a few miles outside Edinburgh, Scotland, in the Pentland Hills.

Their third album for Warp, The Campfire Headphase, was released on 17 October 2005 (18 October in the United States).

Influences

“Of course we are massive fans of My Bloody Valentine. “Loveless” is probably one of my top five favorite albums of all time. I think that, even if we don't sound like them, there's a connection in terms of the approach to the music”
– Michael Sandison, Pitchfork [4]

“We love artists like Joni Mitchell and The Incredible String Band. There's a sort of purity of sound that they have, and I guess we are striving for that ourselves, in our own way. We actually record a fair bit of music that is in that direction, though it's not been released yet. Most of our musical influences are things like this, not electronic music.”
– Michael Sandison, [OOR]

“We have all the Stringband records! In fact, they come from the same place where we live now. We see them from time to time. So I guess our rural sensibilities are similar. Personally, I think they are one of the most important and underrated bands in the past forty years of music. They influenced so many other artists yet they never get due credit.”
– Marcus Eoin Sandison, [OOR]

“We've touched upon the theme of lost childhood a few times because it's something personal to me that gives me real inspiration through its sadness. I think sometimes the best way to get inspiration is to face up to the things that make you very sad in your life, and use them.”
– Michael Sandison, [OOR]

“We usually imagine our music to have a visual element while we're writing it, so we were picturing this character losing his mind at the campfire and compressing weeks of events into a few hours, in that time-stretching way that acid fucks with your perception.”
– Michael Sandison, [OOR]

“Psychedelic experiences lead in this direction; they help us to see things in terms of numbers and their forms, of structures, as if the music was made out of crystals.” – BoC, [Virgin Megaweb Magazine][5]

“The Beatles really became enthralling to us through their psychedelism.”
– BoC, [Virgin Megaweb Magazine]

Sound and methods

Boards of Canada's unique sound is a product of their strong use of analogue equipment, mix of instrumental and synthetic sounds, use of often unrecognizably distorted samples, use of live and radio or film lyrics, and their layering and blending of these elements.

“It's important to leave a certain space there for the listener's imagination.”
– Marcus Eoin Sandison, [OOR] [6]

“A lot of the synthetic-sounding things you hear are actually recordings of us playing other instruments, pianos, flutes or twanging guitar strings or field sounds we get from walking around with portable tape recorders, like electronic beeps in shops, or vehicles, then they are mangled beyond recognition. We have an arsenal of old hi-fi tricks up our sleeves and we basically destroy the sounds until they're really lovely and fucked up. So we're using sounds that are totally our own thing”
– Michael Sandison, HMV magazine [7]

“The voices are sometimes from old TV shows or tapes we've made. We have a lot of stuff we've collected, going back to the early '80s. But half of the time, it's things we've had friends record especially for us. We create tapes all the time. Practically everyone we know has been roped into recording something for us at some point”'
– Michael Sandison, Remix Mag [8]

Brief songs or “vignettes” feature prominently in their music. Such songs are often weaving melodies or speech accompanied by atmospherics to capture a specific moment or mood. They often last less than two minutes, but, as Sandison says, “those short tracks you mention, we write far more of those than the so-called 'full on' tracks, and in a way, they are our own favorites” [OOR].

Boards of Canada have written an enormous number of song fragments and songs, most of which will never be released. It does not appear that music is made exclusively for commercial release. Rather, albums seem to be the result of selecting complementary songs from current work. Geogaddi's development involved the creation of 400 song fragments and 64 complete songs, of which 23 were selected, one of which is silence.

Subliminal messages, symbology, and religion

The band have developed some enigma and controversy. They have only participated in a few tours, and infrequently do interviews or public appearances. Sandison and Eoin enjoy their privacy and the quiet life Scotland affords them, but do instigate on some occasion (unknowingly or not) the perception of themselves as an enigma. They have both expressed a strong interest in the power of subliminal messaging and their work seems rife with cryptic messages. No doubt the sheer amount that can be found in their catalog (not just the scattered and reversed vocal samples, but the mathematical timing of beat structures, song titles, colours, cover art, and track lengths) does much to propagate this enigma. [9]

Some critics refuse to listen to their music on account that they are positive the band is trying to brainwash their listeners for unknown motivations, citing references to David Koresh and occult symbols as proof [10]. Others approach these facts from the skeptical angle, saying it is nothing but a bunch of "cute tricks" and an ironic gesture towards people who take such things seriously (and some would say, as a bit of a similar gesture towards their own body of work in later releases, such as Geogaddi).

Michael Sandison sought to dispel their occasionally cultish image in an interview, saying: "We're not Satanists, or Christians, or Pagans. We're not religious at all. We just put symbols into our music sometimes, depending on what we're interested in at the time. We do care about people and the state of the world, and if we're spiritual at all it's purely in the sense of caring about art and inspiring people with ideas."

Lyrics and references

Main article: Lyrics of Boards of Canada

There are a multitude of masked, backwards, or otherwise obscured messages in Boards of Canada songs- however there is no official word on the validity of these quotes, which may be incorrect.

Discography

Albums

Singles and EPs

Live and radio appearances

Collaborations, covers/remixes and soundtrack appearances

Boards of Canada have remixed a number of artists' songs. The work of these artists is generally described as electronic, ambient, experimental, or hip-hop. Most artists come from the United Kingdom or United States. Boards of Canada has additionally remixed two older, popular songs under the alias Hell Interface, detailed below.

Remixes of Boards of Canada

Remixes by Boards of Canada

Remixes by Boards of Canada as Hell Interface

Soundtrack appearances by Boards of Canada

  • “Turquoise Hexagon Sun", used on several episodes of Monkey Dust.
  • “Sunshine Recorder", used on the show Top Gear during the Toyota Pickup toughness test.
  • “Untitled", used on a commercial for Telecom Italia, directed by Chris Cunningham, who is also well-known for his video work with Aphex Twin. This piece is not commercially available but a portion of this track seems to be sampled on A is to B as B is to C from the Geogaddi album.
  • “The Color Of The Fire" and "5-9-78", used on a European Nissan automobile ad. "5-9-78" is not commercially available, but can be found on the bootleg A Few Old Tunes Vol. 1.
  • “Kid For Today", used on a European BMW automobile ad featuring the 7-Series luxury sedan.
  • “Beware the Friendly Stranger", from Geogaddi, used in "Salad Fingers".

A Few Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2, Early Rarities and Other Oddities

The early works of Boards of Canada, pre-Twoism, are considered by fans to be mythologically rare or even nonexistent. Therefore, any possibility of acquiring any previously unreleased music from the duo is met with ardent fervor. A few years ago, fans discovered about 50 MP3 tracks of various quality, simply known as “Boards of Canada – A Few Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2”. These tracks were discovered online using various file-sharing programs, such as Soulseek. An intense controversy arose over the authenticity of these tracks. Some claimed the tracks were genuine works from Boards of Canada, as some of the songs and samples were found on later official releases. Others believe these tracks were completely faked by overzealous fans. Some enthusiasts believe that the compilation contains authentic Boards of Canada music within a collaboration of other Warp artists, such as Aphex Twin and Autechre. In any case, most people will agree that this collection is, at best, a bootleg, containing music recorded sometime before 1995.

The controversy intensified when an unknown person on Ebay claimed to have the actual audiocassette containing A Few Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2 and put it up for auction, complete with pictures and artwork. Bidding on the cassette was astronomical. Yet, suddenly the auction was shut down for no apparent reason and without a winning bidder. A similar cassette has yet to resurface. Many fans consider the auction the “proof” that “Old Tunes” is an authentic Boards of Canada production. However, until there is an official statement from the duo or from Warp Records, no one can absolutely prove the authenticity of these recordings.

Various other works have been found online, claiming to be original tracks from Catalog 3, Acid Memories, Hooper Bay and other pre-Twoism albums, but none have been officially acknowledged by Boards of Canada. The incredible rarity of these albums only adds to their mystique and allure. Rumors persist that the duo will eventually re-issue their early albums as-is or as part of a special boxed set. Speculation regarding re-issues continues to be an intense subject amongst fans.

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ (Interview) by Hoffmann, Heiko (Sep. 2005). [The Downtempo Duo]. Pitchfork.
  2. ^ (Interview) by Kyrou, Ariel & Leloup, Jean-Yves (June, 1998). [Two Aesthetes of Electronic Music]. Virgin Megaweb magazine.
  3. ^ PIC & Goderich. [Matador Records' Boards of Canada Biography]. Retrieved Mar. 23, 2006.
  4. ^ (Interview) by Hoffmann, Heiko (Sep. 2005). [The Downtempo Duo], Pitchfork
  5. ^ (Interview) by Kyrou, Ariel & Leloup, Jean-Yves (June, 1998). [Two Aesthetes of Electronic Music], Virgin Megaweb magazine
  6. ^ (Interview) by Poolman, Koen (Mar. 2002). [Play Twice Before Listening]. OOR magazine.
  7. ^ (Interview) by Pytlik, Mark (Feb. 2002). [The Colour & The Fire], HMV Magazine
  8. ^ (Interview) by Micallef, Ken (Jul. 2002). [Northern Exposure], Remix Mag.
  9. ^ Diddy, Mikey P. [Brainwashing, Misanthropy and Society: An analysis of Boards of Canada's Geogaddi]. Retrieved Mar. 23, 2006.
  10. ^ Brown, Colin. [What the hell is up with Boards of Canada?: Shorter analysis of Geogaddi]. Retrieved Mar. 23, 2006.

Interviews

See also

Audio samples

Here follow a few short samples from the albums Music Has the Right to Children and Geogaddi in OGG format.

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