Boards of Canada:
Tomorrow's Harvest:
Warp Records:
Out Now:
9/10
It's been eight years since the duo's last album, The Campfire Phase, a somewhat muddled collection when compared to the preceding triumphs of Music Has The Right To Children and Geogaddi. I can safely say that Tomorrow's Harvest is a successful return to the desolate and solitary confines and spaces, conjured up by Boards of Canada's earlier recordings.
Kicking off with a wee jingle, by way of an unsettling prologue (and epilogue - it makes a return at the end of the album), opening track Gemini serves as a transient ambient introduction to an hour's worth of fuzzy progressive electronica and unnerving cinematic interplay between analogue sounds and beats and BoC's unarguable understanding of digital complexity.
Longer, heftier pieces like Jacquard Causeway and Cold Earth evoke slasher-flicks filmed in polar outcrops, while the shorter lulls like Transmisiones Ferox and the ominous Uritual serve as a parenthesis of the imagination, suitable for setting up camp on the top of a deserted munro with the onslaught of winter approaching and slowly, very slowly, losing your mind. Or you could just try listening to it in the warmth of your home, with the lights off and a nip of the hard stuff to hand - far less eerie.
For their fifth album, Boards of Canada apparently began sessions straight after The Campfire Phase, delaying completion to travel and hole up in their studio upon their return. The essential element of journeying is reflected in the slowly-shifting music throughout this fabulous album. Forget about Daft Punk being the new electronic saviours (again), this Scottish pairing have double the imagination right now, even if they don't do disco. Want a club anthem on a scale of one to Get Lucky? Forget it - Tomorrow's Harvest reaps different rewards with the nearest to a banging anthem repped by Split Your Infinities, which comes on like a hybrid of David Lynch, Biosphere and deleted scenes from Les Revenants (The Returned). In fact, if the makers of said French serial-killer series opt to make a follow-up series, Boards of Canada would make ideal sound-tracking foils.
Possibly their most complete aural document to date - buy it (especially on vinyl, lovely package).
Tomorrow's Harvest:
Warp Records:
Out Now:
9/10
Kicking off with a wee jingle, by way of an unsettling prologue (and epilogue - it makes a return at the end of the album), opening track Gemini serves as a transient ambient introduction to an hour's worth of fuzzy progressive electronica and unnerving cinematic interplay between analogue sounds and beats and BoC's unarguable understanding of digital complexity.
Longer, heftier pieces like Jacquard Causeway and Cold Earth evoke slasher-flicks filmed in polar outcrops, while the shorter lulls like Transmisiones Ferox and the ominous Uritual serve as a parenthesis of the imagination, suitable for setting up camp on the top of a deserted munro with the onslaught of winter approaching and slowly, very slowly, losing your mind. Or you could just try listening to it in the warmth of your home, with the lights off and a nip of the hard stuff to hand - far less eerie.
For their fifth album, Boards of Canada apparently began sessions straight after The Campfire Phase, delaying completion to travel and hole up in their studio upon their return. The essential element of journeying is reflected in the slowly-shifting music throughout this fabulous album. Forget about Daft Punk being the new electronic saviours (again), this Scottish pairing have double the imagination right now, even if they don't do disco. Want a club anthem on a scale of one to Get Lucky? Forget it - Tomorrow's Harvest reaps different rewards with the nearest to a banging anthem repped by Split Your Infinities, which comes on like a hybrid of David Lynch, Biosphere and deleted scenes from Les Revenants (The Returned). In fact, if the makers of said French serial-killer series opt to make a follow-up series, Boards of Canada would make ideal sound-tracking foils.
Possibly their most complete aural document to date - buy it (especially on vinyl, lovely package).