Boards Of Canada
Any Boards Of Canada fans here?
For those who aren't familiar, they're a Scottish electronic duo who are pretty much hermits - they hardly ever tour, don't promote themselves, don't do social media, rarely do interviews, and yet are slowly building up a cult following.
Much of their music is reminiscent of the 70s, and in particular those long sunny summer holidays off school when you were a kid. You only have to look at the album cover for Music Has The Right To Children (MHTRTC) and you'll see what I mean. Some of it is quite "dreamy", and no doubt probably mind blowing if you're into certain substances! (I'm not, so I'm just guessing).
They use vintage keyboards from around that period (like a Yamaha CS70) to produce a vintage/retro sort of analogue sound. Their record label is called Music70, and one album contains the track Sixty Ten (70). Yes, they have something about the number 70. A lot of their music revolves around colours/numbers/geometry/shapes, and using soundbites from, amongst others, Sesame Street!
Initially their music sounds quite repetitive, but the more you listen to it, you start hearing new details and layers you never heard before, and despite the production not being pristine, the better the system, the more and more it reveals. Some of the theories are interesting, and some are just downright crazy! Many seem to think their second album, Geogaddi, has deeply satanic themes running through it. The following link is to a page about the supposed themes of the album, and if you click on the individual tracks, it goes into more depth about each. The more you learn, the more you become intrigued. The last time I read those pages, I was researching for a week! Even though Geogaddi followed MHTRTC, they're quite different albums, partly due to 9/11 happening during the making of Geogaddi. It became a darker album, but was still similar in many ways, with most of the tracks seamlessly linked by vignettes. One of the tracks was used in the recent horror film Sinister.
http://bocpages.org/wiki/Geogaddi
There's a website that delves deep into their music, listing the samples and soundbites they use, and also the meaning of them within each track. Their first full album, Music Has The Right To Children, is the perfect example of these multitudes of layered detail. A track called Aquarius from this album was found be part of a very small collection of John Peel's favourite tracks.
You can read more on their Wikipedia and associated pages: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boards_of_Canada
If you're not familiar with them and you're into electronic music, give them a try. They're not your typical electronic music though, which is one reason why they've become one of my favourite artists since their first full length album in 1998. They've influenced many artists, such as Radiohead, and were themselves influenced by artists such as The Beatles. If you don't get it, you'll hate it. But if you do, you won't be able to live without it.
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Originally Posted by Firebottle
