Boards Of Canada have a new album on the way!

Zero1986 wrote: »

The suspense is killing me!! If they do release an album soon it had better be bloody amazing. Geogaddi-level amazing.


I hate you. They seemed like a great band to see high

wrote:

Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children 2xLP (Skam)

Let's start with some background information:
- Boards of Canada duo Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin grew up in Calgary.
- Musically inspired by listening to soundtracks for Canadian TV documentaries.
- Now live and work in a bunker at Scotland's Pentland Hills.
- Also part of a wider arts collective, Music 70.
- Live, Boards of Canada flash subliminal messages on to a backdrop showing Music 70 films.

Now I'm going to talk about the album sleeve. On the front there's a picture of a family of seven. It looks like it was taken circa 1975; their faces are blanked out which gives the whole thing a ghostly feel. When you open it up (it's a gatefold) two of the children are pictured close up; on the back another child features along with the tracklisting. In all three pictures the faces cannot be deciphered. This lends to the mystery of the whole record; its pure simplicity on one level and deep intensity on another. Believe me, once you hear this LP you will get sucked into the dimension that Boards of Canada have created. And this is a good thing, a great listening experience. To the music. . .

The LP begins with one of the several, minute-long musical interludes ("Wildlife Analysis") which sounds exactly like it should - a sonic soundscape of nature with an evocative tone. "An Eagle In Your Mind" and "Telaphasic Workshop" merge caustic beats with melody; the latter having a vocal sample saying "Border in Canada" (I think). The sampled voices work throughout and range from those of children to that of a deep, booming male. "I love you" implores a child on "The Color Of The Fire" while the beautiful but scary "Roygbiv" which concludes Side 2 has yet another child shouting "saved". A lot of tracks remind me of early Aphex Twin, the Ricky D of Selected Ambient Works Volume 1. However the underlying groove throughout is quite original.

"Aquarius" is probably my favourite track so far. (I've only had the album a fortnight). It takes the form of an ambient mood which sounds a tiny bit like some of the tunes on The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (an album which floats; Music Has The Right To Children glides). The surreal booming voice chants "Orange - yeah that's right" which a female begins to count upwards "one...two...." etc. The counting device is one that we have heard before on Spiritualized's "200 Bars" but hear it is present on a different level. When the "squelch" (you know what I mean!) kicks in the combination is sublime.

The interludes give a kind of structure to the album; they slow things down while we prepare for the next assault. The influences here seem to be from wildlife documentaries and children's TV (from the 1970s of course). "Pete Standing Alone" is a plaintive lonely track which has a haunting effect as soon as the sampler starts up. The closing track "One Very Important Thought" is one very strange conclusion. A Canadian woman is talking to us about censorship; what right do we have to be told what we can read, watch or listen to. She implies that Boards of Canada could fall into this category of subsersive material one day. Well if they do it will be because the record companies are running scared and will not be able to compete with such releases of this quality i.e. they will use everything in their power to suppress the competition. Wow, what a concept - Boards of Canada vs. The Music Industry, Before I get carried away I'll wind things down and say that Music Has The Right To Children is the best album released since Entroducing and for that I bestow the ultimate rating (10).