What Do Lil Peep, the Nuclear Disaster of Chernobyl, Queen, Myth-busters, Death Note, Silent Hill, Aliens, Cults, and Blood Red Moons All Have in Common With Boards of Canada? Read More to Find Out All the Connections.

This article which is the only biggest resource of information all-on-one-page on the internet will delve deep into the true mind-fuck that is Boards of Canada.

Form the retro nostalgic feeling that are the 90’s and 80’s, to religion, Christmas holidays, satanism, conspiracy theories, deadly cults, witches, and the supernatural, this music group has a lot to offer.

Their love for all things science spanning from math, numerology, psychedelic geometry, radio-waves, and their favorite shape, the hexagon, to their IDM Lo-Fi synth inspired music along with their similarities to Autechre, Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, Squarepusher, LFO, and Radiohead are amazing, to say the least.

These guys spent massive portions of their life in Canada, and Scotland, creating and mastering the art of electronic music, oftentimes uncanny and downright creepy with their use of children’s voices, they manage to incorporate the likes of subliminal messaging and long and complicated puzzles for their heavily dedicated and inspired fans to decode with the use of computer programming and treasure hunting in a retro nostalgic spacesuit type of way.

Welcome to the world of Boards of Canada, the true mind-fuck of the genre of electronic music.

Table of Contents Here’s a simple overview of what will be covered in this long, long article about Boards of Canada; Boards of Canada’s Background What Are They? Who Are Boards of Canada? Where Were They Born? When Did They Start Making Music?

Boards of Canada’s Brand When Did They Start Boards of Canada? Why Did They Call It Boards of Canada? Are They Signed To Any Label? Do They Have An Alias? What Other Acts Do They Have?

Boards of Canada’s Music What Type of Music Do They Do? How Many Albums / EPs / Other Recordings Do They Have? Albums EPs Live Albums Limited-Release Albums Officially Unreleased Albums Need a Guide on What Album to Listen to Depending on Your Mood? Who Influenced Their Sound? Who Sounds Similar To Them? Who Did They Sample? Whose Songs Did They Remix? What Equipment Do They Use? Where Can You Listen To Them?

Boards of Canada’s Artwork How Would One Describe Their Artwork? Their Visuals The Environment That The Pictures Were Taken In The Subjects That Are In The Pictures The Effect That The Pictures Have Their Sound How Would One Describe Their Sound? How To Sound Like Them? Who Makes Their Artwork?

Boards of Canada’s Community Who Did Remixes Of Them? Who Used Snippets / Samples Of Them in Their Songs? Do They Have Compilations Of Their Discography?

Boards of Canada’s Past Inside The Present Are They Still Together And Is The Band Still Making Music? Do They Still Do Live Performances?

Conclusion

References

Boards of Canada’s Background

What Are They?

Boards of Canada are an electronic music group (or band) consisting of 2 musicians (or record producers). The music group was formed in 1986.

The image was found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P9EYB79WJE

Who Are Boards of Canada?

There are 2 members currently and have been there from the start, but they had as many as 12 members at one point.

The members are of the following;

Mike Sandison (Born on June 1, 1970, which makes him 49 years old from the release of this article) (Mike is short for Michael)

Marcus Eoin (Born on July 21, 1971, which makes him 47 years old from the release of this article)

Images were found here:

https://hyponik.com/news/boards-of-canada-return-with-new-album-tomorrows-harvest/

https://www.cue-records.com/A-Z-Artists/B/Boards-of-Canada/?language=en

Fun fact: They are actually brothers, their surname is Sandison and Marcus Eoin is actually Marcus Eoin Sandison (He is the younger brother of the two) because they used his middle name to hide the fact that they are family related since when they started releasing music in the mid-90s, they didn’t want to be compared to Orbital, a band consisting of 2 brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. But why didn’t they want to be compared to them? Tell me what you guys think in the comment section down below.

Where Were They Born?

They were both born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the UK.

The image was found here: https://euobserver.com/political/134296

Fun fact: They moved to Canada at an early age, which started the brewing of the Boards of Canada we know of today, and they currently live in Scotland since 1999, as they said the following in an interview;

“We’ve been based around Edinburgh for the last 20 years, so this is home.”

Weird fact: Apparently they live somewhere remote in the nature part of Scotland, so remote that the only way to gain contact with them is through telephone. This is what they said in their “Peel Session” in 1998 with John Peel.

When Did They Start Making Music?

They started at 6-7 years old because they had musical equipment laying around their parent’s house at the time and they just started to explore them. They started to record their own music at about the age of 10.

These are the following things the brothers have said about when they started music in the 2005 interview called “The Downtempo Duo” by Heiko Hoffmann;

Mike: We were about 6 or 7 years old when we started to learn instruments and play together. We actually started to record our own music when we were about 10. If your parents have tape recorders, pianos and stuff like lying around in the house you are just going to play around with them.

Marcus: Yeah but I wouldn’t describe it as Boards of Canada music at that time.

Mike: Obviously we didn’t have a multitrack recorder, but we had two tape recorders. What you could do is record something on one tape recorder, play it back across two feet of air and while it was playing accompany it with something else on the guitar, the piano, the drums, whatever. We would do this, swap the cassettes over and do it again and again until the tapes started getting so distorted that you couldn’t do it any longer. So it was really crude old-school multitrack recording. But it was a good way for us to learn how to compose our own stuff.

Boards of Canada’s Brand

When Did They Start Boards of Canada?

In their teenage years, they were in multiple amateur bands, but in 1986, when younger brother Marcus was asked to join his brothers’ band, Boards of Canada was born.

The image was found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDvlYmW0YuU

Amazing fact: If they started in 1986, that means that they were 16 (Mike Sandison) and 15 (Marcus Eoin) when they started the revolutionary Boards of Canada!

Why Did They Call It Boards of Canada?

They named themselves after an educational TV program distributor by the name of “National Film Board of Canada” they used to watch on old VHS players in Scotland and Canada as children. The TV program used to have many nature-inspired documentaries that they took samples from in their recordings.

The image was found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPtRNAmVrpc

Here’s an example of what NFB do;

These are the following things the brothers have said about how they got their signature name in the 2005 interview called “The Downtempo Duo” by Heiko Hoffmann;

Marcus: We saw them in both Canada and Scotland. The films were on television in the UK for years. For a long time we weren’t sure what [the NFBC] would think about a band being named after them. Only recently did we find out that they had used our music on some of their films. So we took that as approval.

Mike: They have a newsletter and even ran an article on us a couple of years ago. So that’s a strange feedback loop.

Marcus: Back then television was a really big deal for us because we were so bored. We weren’t old enough to go to the cinema and we were in a town where there was absolutely bugger all to do. So we just went out and vandalized property. [Laughs] Or sneak in video nasties from the local video store. Or got our friends together to make films. We had our crappy early-80s bikes and went out with my dad’s super-8 camera making films.

This is what BOC said according to a NFB blog post about them and their connections to the National Film Board of Canada;

“Yes, the NFB films were one of our influences when we were younger. The thing about the older films is that the quality of the picture and soundtrack weren’t perfect, it was grainy and wobbly. We used to record compositions on cheap tapes which gave a similar rough quality, and we’ve always returned to that sound because it feels personal and nostalgic.”

Just an observation, when Marcus said “crappy early-80s bikes”, it reminded me of their music video for their track “Everything You Do is a Balloon”.

Fun fact: The title of the song “Pete Standing Alone” from the album “Music Has The Right To Children” is a reference to the National Film Board of Canada documentary trilogy called “Standing Alone”.

You can watch the documentary here.

Are They Signed To Any Label?

Images were found here:

https://www.residentadvisor.net/record-label.aspx?id=10593

https://www.discogs.com/label/105-Skam

https://www.warp.net/artists/91400-eno–hyde/info

Music70

This is the first label that Boards of Canada released under. The label was created in 1992 and is based in Edinburgh, Scottland. They make short films and creates images, paintings, and other art.

Fun fact: It’s actually created and owned by Boards of Canada themselves, therefore they released music under their own label.

This is what BOC said about their own label;

It’s done purely for ourselves and our friends, and it has no commercial aims at all.

Fun fact: They are the ONLY artists that are signed to the label.

Skam Records

This is the first real label that BOC signed to other than their own label. The label was created in 1990 and is based in London, England.

Here are some of the famous artists they have signed to their label;

Autechre

Jega

Darrell Fitton

VHS Head

WARP Records

This is the 2nd label that BOC signed to after Skam Records. They signed to WARP Records in 1998. The label was created in 1989 and is based in London, England.

Here’s a quote taken from WARPs website about page explaining what they are in a beautifully crafted sentence;

For 30 years Warp Records has been a synonym for adventures in sound and vision, consistently furthering their position as one of the most creative independent record labels in the world. With a rich legacy and consistently groundbreaking vision of the future, Warp and its artists traverse mediums to explore new spaces. Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, Brian Eno, Hudson Mohawke and Squarepusher are just a few who represent the label.

Here are some of the famous artists they have signed to their label;

Aphex Twin

Autechre

Flying Lotus

Squarepusher

LFO (This artist died in 2014 (Amazing music as well, check him out))

Boards of Canada did a couple live shows for WARP, and they did one recently from the time that this article was released, they are the following;

Warp’s 10th Anniversary: The Incredible Lighthouse Party (1999)

Warp’s 30th Anniversary: Societas x Tape (2019)

Here’s a mix of all the artists of WARP Records at the time, this piece is fire in its’ own right, I couldn’t find the original version for some reason;

Do They Have An Alias?

Their other music group is called “Hell Interface”. It’s more bizarre and unorthodox than their normal music that we know of from Boards of Canada.

An example of this more bizarre, unorthodox, and downright scary tone is from an album from 1997 called “Whine And Missingtoe”, that they released under the label “V/Vm Test Records” alongside other various music producers. A user by the name of “deejsasqui” described the theme of the album as the following;

This is a short collection of chopped and hacked Holiday favorites.

Images were found here: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Whine-And-Missingtoe/release/6673

Their appearance comes on the 2nd track of the album, with the song title being “Soylent Night”. It’s a knockoff from the Christmas holy song of “Silent Night”.

Have a listen below, I think it’s downright scary but low-key love it, what do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

Scary fact: In the song, in between 1.07 and 2 minutes, there is a heavily distorted and manipulated voice that recites the lyrics of the song “Silent Night”, the following are the lyrics from that song;

“Silent night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright,

Round yon virgin mother and child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace”

Scary fact 2: At the end of the song, there is a voice, this voice if you listen carefully enough, is reciting “The Lord’s Prayer”, the following are the lyrics from that song;

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever, amen.”

As u can see, they have a Christmas vibe to their song, hence why they are on the album.

You can listen to their full discography on this youtube video, it’s a compilation of all the tracks that Hell Interface have ever released publicly to the world;

What Other Acts Do They Have?

They have Hexagon Sun which is an artistic collective located in Pentland Hills, Scotland. In interviews, they said that they make art in a lot of mediums, mostly audio and video. These art peices are often exhibited at “RedMoon” parties. The members of this collective are the brothers obviously, and a couple of other people.

Fun fact: Their recording studio is actually called “Hexagon Sun”

Weird fact: Some fans think that Hexagon Sun is a cult, and some just think it’s the name of the studio.

They have references to this artistic collective in some of their tracks, they are of the following;

The track “Orange Hexagon Sun” from the album “Old Tunes Vol. 2”.

The track “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” from the album “Music Has The Right To Children”.

There are also some artworks referring to the collective.

Images were found here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/65kw89/hexagon_sun/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJq5_QahOWNOqIpcYKkIByg

https://bocpages.org/wiki/File:BOC-aquarius-vinyl-inlay-sheet.jpg

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/boards-of-canada-to-reissue-catalogue-on-vinyl

Comment down below if you got the joke (plz)

Weird fact 2: Some fans think that Hexagon Sun formed by them having these get-together parties that eventually got named as the “Redmoon” events because, in one of the parties, there was a lunar eclipse, which caused the color or the moon to go blood red.

The image was found here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44945452

Conspiracy theory: Remember in the top section of this article, Where they said they live in a remote part of Scotland, so remote that the only way to contact them is through telephone, and they also said that they have been living around Edinburgh for the past 20 years? Well, the Hexagon Sun Studio is located somewhere in Pentland Hills, so there might be a connection with all of this information.

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

You can check out the actual place with the following pins I made here, and here on google maps.

Images were found here:

http://www.stanfords.co.uk/Pentland-Hills-Harvey-Superwalker-XT25_9781851373130

http://scorecover.com/scorecover-com-euro-2016-betting-tips-sad-to-spoil-the-party/

Boards of Canada’s Music

What Type of Music Do They Do?

Genre

Electronic

Style

IDM (Intelligent Dance Music)

Downtempo

Electronica

Techno

Ambient Techno

Ambient

Psychedelia

How Many Albums / EPs / Other Recordings Do They Have?

Here’s an overview of all their work (at least the ones that were put out by themselves or discovered by fans);

It’s on a timeline to show when each piece was brought into the world to the public eye, the color code you see on the top left of each recording is the type of recording it is, whether it be a Studio Album (Color of Blue), EP (Color of Green), Limited-Release Album (Color of Red), Live Album (Color of Purple), or Officially Unreleased Album (Color of Yellow).

Their first cover art and album was created in 1987 with Catalog 3, unfortunately, it was never released to the public and none of the tracks within the album have never been heard by the public and stays a mystery till today. The last time they released music on their behalf was in 2013 with Tomorrow’s Harvest.

Early in their career, from 1987 to 1996, there are 6 limited-release albums, it’s true because Boards of Canada themselves confirmed this through their website, they were only heard by their friends and family since these early works were only limitedly distributed to them, but some were retrieved by die-hard fans, the only one that was successfully retrieved was the Boc Maxima album in its entirety, and 3 of the albums were only partially retrieved, with one track per album, they were the following;

“Duffy” from the album Acid Memories “Wouldn’t You Like To Be Free?” from the album Play by Numbers “Circle” from the album Hooper Bay

The last 2 publicly known of albums were “Catalog 3” and “Closes Vol. 1”, these are not retrieved of till today. There are probably more of the bands’ early works, but most of them still remain a secret as they are private.

How far down the rabbit hole must we go to find these treasures?

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

In total, they have 19 individually crafted pieces of music in the span of their public careers.

The following are all their known of public works categorized on what type of works they are and in each section they go in order from earliest to latest respective to each section, with each work having a list of tracks in order as they were laid out by the band themselves.

All the text in blue in this section are links to their albums or songs on youtube (since some of the albums were partially retrieved, as stated above)

Albums

An Album or LP (Long Play) is a collection of songs, usually has 8 to 12 songs or tracks within each playlist.

1. Music Has The Right To Children (Made In 1998)

In an interview, Boards of Canada said the following about the title and some of the tracks of this album;

“Our titles are always cryptic references which the listener might understand or might not. Some of them are personal, so the listener is unlikely to know what it refers to. Music Has the Right to Children is a statement of our intention to affect the audience using sound. The Color Of The Fire was a reference to a friend’s psychedelic experience. Kaini Industries is a company that was set up in Canada ( by coincidence in the month Mike was born), to create employment for a settlement of Cree Indians. Olson is the surname of a family we know, and Smokes Quantity is the nickname of a friend of ours.”

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Wildlife Analysis

An Eagle In Your Mind

The Color Of The Fire

Telephasic Workshop

Triangles & Rhombuses

Sixtyten

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Kaini Industries

Bocuma

Roygbiv

Rue The Whirl

Aquarius

Olson

Pete Standing Alone

Smokes Quantity

Open The Light

One Very Important Thought

Happy Cycling

Fun Fact: Apparently, the cover image for the album was taken at Banff Springs in Alberta in Canada, according to the website “We Are The Music Makers”

Images were found here: https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=163121&sid=9258e7a86c0cde8d02c7a55ec3590aa4

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

You can check out the actual place with this pin I made here on this google maps link.

Also from the image below, you can see that the “Trans Canada Highway” passes through this area, which is important because the following few album releases from BOC will have hints, keep reading to find out the connections 😉

2. Geogaddi (Made In 2002)

This is the most controversial album that Boards of Canada ever had. It has 23 tracks on it, one of which has no audio. A cup of silence anyone?

Boards of Canada chose 23 tracks out of an amazing 90+ tracks that they produced. That’s A LOT of good tracks unheard! What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

They released this album suddenly with very little promotion, by debuting it in 6 churches, of which were located in London, New York, Tokyo, Edinburgh, Paris, and Berlin.

BOC have explained Geogaddi to be as quoted;

“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. It has a kind of narrative.” (OOR, 2002)

This album was “a chaotic period in their personal lives”(OOR, 2002), as described by one of the brothers, also admitting that the 9/11 terrorist attacks have really had an impact on the tone and environment of Geogaddi.

“Geogaddi was kind of exorcising demons, and even after we’d set out to do a record like that, smack in the middle of working on it, 9/11 happened. I remember there were a few of us in the studio that day, and we just ended up glued to the TV for the whole day. I think the months after that pushed us into making a darker record, as I’m sure it did with a lot of bands.” (Play Louder, 2005)

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Ready Lets Go

Music Is Math

Beware The Friendly Stranger

Gyroscope

Dandelion

Sunshine Recorder

In The Annexe

Julie And Candy

The Smallest Weird Number

1969

Energy Warning

The Beach At Redpoint

Opening The Mouth

Alpha And Omega

I Saw Drones

The Devil Is In The Details

A Is To B As B Is To C

Over The Horizon Radar

Dawn Chorus

Diving Station

You Could Feel The Sky

Corsair

Magic Window

BOC usually use vocals in their pieces, more like a background sound rather than mixing in with the beat of the pieces. This album has caused a lot of controversy due to the types of vocals they used within it, spanning from the supernatural, to religious, to mathematical, and possibly to Satanism.

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

Images were found here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/73324300152724897/

http://theconversation.com/yes-mathematics-can-be-decolonised-heres-how-to-begin-65963

http://paraatmajiwaatmavedaanta.blogspot.com/2018/05/blog-post_16.html

https://www.allartclassic.com/subj_pictures_zoom.php?p_number=&p=&number=BOW020&forder=1

This is a common comment on the album said by an Amazon.com customer’s review of Geogaddi:

“A person can’t listen to a BOC disc without feeling that there is something baleful in their music. These guys are weirdos (from the interviews they’ve done), which doesn’t take anything away from what they may be trying to accomplish (make good music). I believe they are trying to do something more than just make good music. They are working for the side that I’m not on, so it would be deleterious to my soul to listen to the influential grooves they lay down. The evil is blatant.” (Amazon, 2003).

If you want to find out more about the controversy surrounding this album, head over to this link.

Some subliminal messages behind the tracks of this album are as follows;

The track “Beware The Friendly Stranger” is used as a background soundtrack in the popular creepy British animated series of Salad Fingers created by David Firth

The track “Gyroscope” used sound samples from the “Conet Project”, which was a soundtrack composed of numbers stations and short wave radio transmissions of unknown origin that were believed to be operated by the government to communicate with spies.

The image was found here: https://boomkat.com/products/the-conet-project-recordings-of-shortwave-numbers-stations-expanded-5cd-edition

The track “Julie And Candy” has a sample from the 1972 movie of “Season of the Witch”

The track “The Smallest Weird Number” has a mathematical reference to 70 which is, in fact, the smallest “weird” number, here’s what Wikipedia says about it.

“It’s a natural number that is abundant but not semiperfect, in other words, the sum of the proper divisors (divisors including 1 but not itself) of the number is greater than the number, but no subset of those divisors sums to the number itself.”

The image was found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_number

The track “1969” has a sample from a verse that says “Although not a follower of David Koresh (his name is said in reverse within the sample) she is a devoted Branch Davidian”

David Koresh basically controlled a church in Hallsburg, Texas in USA called Mount Carmel Compound. The religion of this church was called the “Branch Davidians”, and they believed that the world was going to end soon, therefore they had to prepare to die. 117 people lived with him in this church, including 46 children, with no running water or electricity.

He controlled people by using his knowledge of the Bible, that he knew inside out. The things he controlled people with was to get them to defend him and the church by going into gunfights, finding a dead body to blackmail the son of the woman who was the leader of the church at the time before David took over (David also had a kid with the sons’ mother, she was around 60 while David was around his 30’s), he had sexual activity whenever he wanted with all the females of the community, including married women and children as young as 12. He could be the only one to impregnate these women, he ended up having 15 sons and daughters all from the same compound where they all lived in. He didn’t let people leave the church, if they tried, he would rape them (Only if they were female). He made them collect all sorts of firearms within the church, including but not limited to the following: guns, rifles, grenades, grenade launchers, etc.

On the end, police found out about how these people were being controlled and would do anything to save David and the church, so they had to stop them somehow, they raided the church which ended in a gunfight and the followers pouring fire on the police, resulting in 6 of his followers killed. The tensions were high and the church ended up with little to no food and water because no one was allowed to go out and none from the public were allowed to go in.

On the 19th of April 1993 (26 years ago from today), a tank smashed in building, letting out tear gas, hoping that they would come out, but 6 hours later a fire started, and they thought this was the moment when they would come out, but on the end, the fire burnt the whole church compound, killing all the 79 followers at the time, including 22 children. As for David, he was shot in the head while trying to escape the fire from the back side.

Also in 1969 (Which also happens to be the name of the song), CS gas (basically tear gas used to reduce or stop riots) was banned by the US government against foreign enemies. This gas coincidentally happened to be the gas they used in the fire.

Images were found here:

https://app.emaze.com/@AOIOFRRTT#8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians

3. The Campfire Headphase (Made In 2005)

To explain this album in a simple sentence, although not to remove from the amazing piece: Less of an electronic vibe (In other words fewer synthesizers), has more of an acoustic sound to it, it’s a special hybrid.

According to Playlouder magazine, BOC have explained The Campfire Headphases’ sound to be as quoted;

“There’s less use of synths on this record. We’ve leaned heavily towards a whole ‘played, taped and sampled’ backdrop this time. I guess sampling for us is different from a lot of other bands, because we routinely sample ourselves rather than other records, so most of the sound generation is coming from real instruments that we played ourselves, mostly recorded with microphones, and a lot of location recording. What you hear on the record is kind of a wall of sound created by sampling as many gnarled acoustic sources [as] we could find.”

This is what BOC said on why they are using more acoustic sounds for this album:

“With the new album,” Marcus explains,”we deliberately went for a lo-fi guitar sound on a few of the tracks because we were going for a sun-bleached, Californian summer kind of sound, it’s almost reminiscent of a Joni Mitchell sound in places.”

BOC said that the North American landscape and it’s music heavily influenced the album of The Campfire Headphase.

“This time we set out to make something simple that had shades of a road movie soundtrack, like the musical score to a surreal journey across a late 70’s North American desert highway,” Michael Sandison explains, also characterizing the record as something “like a futuristic western or something…but [always with] something subtle and surreal going on in the tracks to remind you that you’re hearing something that has been tainted or spiked in some way by unfathomable futuristic technology. It’s maybe like campfire music played by android cowboys.”

The image was found here: https://www.fayettevilleflyer.com/2018/10/05/contemporary-native-art-serves-as-focus-of-new-exhibit-at-crystal-bridges/

This album also lacks children’s voices, which is a signature BOC characteristic, they did this on purpose as they described below;

“That was a deliberate thing,” Marcus explained to Earplug magazine. “We got fed up with people saying that we’re a formulaic band that you could kind of describe in a couple of sentences…I think it can become really dangerous for a band if you don’t have a certain level of self-consciousness about these things. You always have to stay a few steps in front of your audience. We always have people putting fakes on the Internet before a new record is released, and the fakes are always really electronic with little kids’ voices and things like that. Probably next time around all the fakes will include wobbly guitars like the ones we use on the new album The Campfire Headphase (laughs).”

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Into The Rainbow Vein

Chromakey Dreamcoat

Satellite Anthem Icarus

Peacock Tail

Dayvan Cowboy

A Moment Of Clarity

84 Pontiac Dream

Sherbet Head

Oscar See Through Red Eye

Ataronchronon

Hey Saturday Sun

Constants Are Changing

Slow This Bird Down

Tears From The Compound Eye

Farewell Fire

The artwork more over than the sound has many characteristics to the album ‘Music Has the Right to Children’. When BOC was asked about this similarity, they said the following;

“It’s deliberately reminiscent of. Musically it’s like an echo of that record, all bleached-out blue skies and so on. In some ways it sounds older than ‘Music Has the Right…’ because of the choice of instruments and the sheer amount of damage we’ve done to the sound.”

Scary Fact: If you invert the back cover image of the album, the child’s expression morphs into a ghostly, almost horrified, stare.

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

Back cover image was found here: http://bocpages.org/wiki/File:BRC-139-back.jpeg

Strange Fact: If you get the CD version of this album from SKAM Records, it comes with a sticker for blind people to read. The braille sticker reads out “Boards of Canada”. Adds a touch of Sci-Fi doesn’t it? What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

Front cover CD image was found here: https://bocpages.org/wiki/File:Mhtrtc_braille.jpg

This is their latest official release of music, and the promotion up until the release of this album was a massive mindfuck, to say the least. It was a long and complicated buildup, and that’s an understatement. Are you ready for the mindfuck?

In 2013, a vinyl was found with the strange title of “——/——/——/xxxxxx/——/——” at a record store on “Record Store Day” (It’s a day where labels release limited edition material through selected record stores.), this vinyl was no ordinary one, it was from Boards of Canada themselves.

An employee from that record store confirmed it was an official Boards of Canada vinyl because a representative from WARP Records came to that record store to drop it off, and there are confirmed to only have 6 of these copies in the world.

Once the vinyl was played, the nostalgic sound of Boards of Canada started broadcasting through, with a genderless distorted human voice stating 6 digits. These six digits happen to fit perfectly on the title of the vinyl, which has a 36 digit code separated by 6 groups of 6 digit codes. The position of each 6 digit code is indicated by the placement of the x’s within the title. These 6 vinyls were places in record shops around the world. The last 2 vinyls were never found to this day.

Meanwhile, on Youtube, BOC’s official channel have been leaving comments on Boards of Canada fan-made music videos. One of these comments was from the “Hell Interface” YouTube channel can the comment contained a URL to a private YouTube video with the title “Nuevas Semillas”, this video contained nothing on it, and was a few seconds long, but in the description of this video, there was another link to another private YoutTube video that contained the new code and position.

Then a day later, the 3rd code and position were broadcasted on a radio station called “BBC Radio One”. Later that evening, the 4th code was broadcasted on another radio station called “NPR”, but the position wasn’t shown. This position would be then shown later, in the Loading Bay Art Gallery in London.

Meanwhile, on Youtube, BOC’s official channel had updated it’s top 3 videos with “Twoism” being the first, Then BOC fans have noticed that the Twoism message-board banner art had changed slightly, with just an overlay over the previous banner art, with the overlay being the c-s-c-h vid.

A guy by the name of “Royce Ausburn” was downloading the banner image to his machine and ran a Unix “Strings” command on it, which is a command that finds and prints out text in binary files, and the terminal output gave him 2 URLs that took him to 2 private tracks with the same title of the Greek uppercase sigma letter “Σ” which means “sum”, on BOCs official SoundCloud profile. Both the tracks had the cover image of a signal mixer that sums 2 inputs, and by summing the two tracks together, you get the 5th code of the 36 digit code.

There was another output from that command that he ran, it reads “There’s Another”, and below that was a long string of digits and characters which was a binary code to make up a GIF image. When this code was taken and put on a hex editor and then saved as a new file, an image appears with the position of the 5th code.

A few days later, all of BOCs official domains were pointing to their domain called “cosecha-transmisiones.com”. On this domain, the only thing you see is a render of a terminal that asks for a username and password to access it.

If you view the pages source code, it will show an ASCII character graphic showing the position of the 6th and final code. But there is the 6th code though?

Turns out there was also a JavaScript file on top of the graphic that was called “x.js” and the HTTP response headers for the index.php page has an unusual entry called “Nuevas-Semillas”, containing the following base-64 code;

“aHR0cDovL2Qyejczdmg3Y3I3OXJ5LmNsb3VkZnJvbnQubmV0L2Nvc2VjaGEubXAz”

If we decode this base-64 code, it shows a URL link to an MP3 file. That mp3 file unveils the last important code to the puzzle, it be heard below;

Combining all the codes together, without slashes, is the correct password for the terminal on the site. This leads us to a video that reveals the album’s title “Tomorrow’s Harvest” and the release date.

If you want to read more about the other promotional stunt they did for the live broadcast of their “Tomorrow’s Harvest” album, then follow this link.

All the images above in this section of the album “Tomorrow’s Harvest” were found here: https://bocpages.org/wiki/Cosecha_Transmisiones

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Gemini

Reach For The Dead

White Cyclosa

Jacquard Causeway

Telepath

Cold Earth

Transmisiones Ferox

Sick Times

Collapse

Palace Posy

Split Your Infinities

Uritual

Nothing Is Real

Sundown

New Seeds

Come To Dust

Semena Mertvykh

Fun fact: The cover artwork for this album is the San Francisco skyline in California, USA.

The image was found here: https://bocpages.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Harvest

The image was taken from the runway at the old Alameda Naval Air Station. This also happens to be the place where the set of the science show “MythBusters” was.

You can check out the actual place with the following pin I made here on google maps.

The image was found here: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/photos/mythbusters-road-rage-pictures/

Weird fact: All of BOC’s owned websites are either with a black soulless background or show server errors, only their “www.boardsofcanada.com” works, kinda, well it just redirects to Bleeps website on BOCs profile there.

The following are the websites that don’t work

www.music70.com

www.hexagonsun.com

www.cosecha-transmisiones.com

I think they purposefully did this to keep us wondering about what’s next, leaving us on edge. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

EPs

An EP (Extended Play) is a collection of songs, It’s somewhere in between an album and a single since it’s too short to be an album but too long to be a single.

5. Twoism (Made In 1995)

This EP was the first time Boards of Canada posted any music publicly, they released the EP album from their own label called Music70, and it was at around this time that they ever got signed to a label, this label was called SKAM Records.

The original copy of the printed album was heavily wanted by many followers and collectors, it’s been known to sell for over $1,000 in online auctions. BOC was asked about the crazy high prices that the album was being sold for by HMV, they said the following:

“Some people have clearly got too much money on their hands” (HMV Interview, 2002).

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

The high price was somewhat partly because, number one, it was sold with a limited amount of copies, number two because it was their first ever appearance to the worldwide public eye, and third, because there used to be a 3rd member in Boards of Canada… Yes, you heard right, the 3rd member was given credit at the back of the original release of the album.

The image was found here: http://bocpages.org/wiki/File:Twoism_Tape_Sleeve.jpg

His name was Christopher Horne, and at the back of the album he was credited as “Chris H.”. The credit was later removed from the artwork on Chris’s request on the reissue of the album under the Warp Records label.

Christopher is now called “christ.”, he’s a Scottish musician, the same place where BOC is from. Here’s some of his dope music that I absolutely love;

Fun Fact: Chris said that there is no religious context to his stage name “christ.”, he said it’s just a short version of his name.

Images were found here:

http://www.jesuschristsavior.net/Jesus.html

https://www.discogs.com/fr/artist/31633-Christ

What do you guys think of the ex-member of BOB, christ.? Leave it in the comment section down below.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Sixtyniner

Oirectine

Iced Cooly

Basefree

Twoism

Seeya Later

Melissa Juice

Smokes Quantity / 1986 Summer Fire

This first public release will set the nostalgic, eerie, coming of age type of tone for all the other albums and recordings that were to come out from BOC.

Fun fact: Two of the songs from this album will later be re-released in different albums, those songs were the following;

The track “Seeya Later” will reappear 1 year later in the album “Hi Scores”

The track “Smokes Quantity” will reappear 3 years later in the album “Music Has The Right To Children”

Fun Fact 2: The front cover for this album was taken from “The Killings at Outpost Zeta.”, which was a science fiction film made in 1980. The cover art is taken approximately 5 minutes before the film ended, where these were the last 2 people left alive on the planet. Talk about an intense love story huh?

Fun Fact 3: In the movie, “The Killings at Outpost Zeta.”, the viewer is seeing what the aliens called the “baddies” see from their perspective when stalking the astronauts roaming around the harsh eerie landscape, which is that of a fish-eyes’ lens. BOC actually uses this kind of effect in some of their own pictures of themselves.

The image on the left was found here: http://www.self-titledmag.com/2013/08/15/boards-of-canada-reveal-long-overdue-vinyl-reissues/

The image on the right was taken from a snippet of the movie.

Are we viewing life from an aliens fish-eye perspective and getting this strange uncanny feeling when observing human life from afar, seem to be some sort of like an experiment, the human experiment? Could this be another subliminal mind-fuck?

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

6. Hi Scores (Made In 1996)

This is the 2nd album that BOC publicly released since Twoism, and has one of the tracks from the 1st publicly released album in it as explained above in the previous section.

The album was mastered by Darrell Fitton aka Bola, here’s some of this music;

Conspiracy Theory: The “Hi” part of the name of the album “Hi Scores” could refer to the initials for Boards of Canada’s alias “Hell Interface”. The connections are real people.

What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Hi Scores

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Nlogax

June 9th

Seeya Later

Everything You Do Is a Balloon

Fun fact: The song “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” was re-released 2 years later in the album “Music Has the Right to Children”

Weird fact: The track “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” has a remake of it in the popular Japanese manga series of “Death Note” written by Tsugumi Ohba. It’s in their soundtrack album on the 17th track called “Taikutsu” (or “Boredom” if translated in English from Japanese).

The image was found here; https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3444798/animated-death-note-characters-react-netflixs-death-note-trailer/

From the research I’ve done, it’s a copy of the original one of “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” since Death Note came out in 2003 whereas the album “BOC Maxima” where the song was released on first came out in 1996.

I personally think it’s a beautiful version of the original in it’s own respect, like it’s so chill and relaxing, nostalgia is strong with this one, don’t you think? Let me know in the comment section down below.

7. Aquarius (Made In 1998)

This album is one of the shortest that BOC has, it’s got only 2 tracks that barely break the 13-minute mark.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Aquarius

Chinook

Fun fact: One of the songs from this album will later be re-released in a different, and one of them was re-released in this album from another one that was not seen by the public, as follows;

The track “Aquarius” will reappear a few months later in the album “Music Has The Right To Children”

Weird fact: A fan of BOC actually plotted the numbers said in the track “Aquarius” on an X and Y axis graph to have a visual representation of the song. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section below.

Are their some subliminal messages going on here? The graph goes haywire after the number 34 and one of the plot lines go way off the graph which happens to be the number 70 if you do a literal translation of the French word for seventy ‘soixante dix’. Maybe it’s with reference to their label, Music70? The mystery still lives on.

The image was found here: https://medium.com/@EddyBamyasi/take-a-flutter-on-the-unique-sound-of-boards-of-canada-5fd7533e160

The track “Chinook” reappeared in this album from the album “Boc Maxima” that was made 2 years ago without the public knowing

Scary fact: In the music video for “Chinook”, from around 5:13 to 5:49, and then from 6:29 to 7:04, you can see actual footage of a person walking away from a dangerously warping bridge called the “Tacoma Narrows Bridge” that collapsed due to powerful winds in 1940, just a few months from its’ opening. People were praising the build to be the 3rd largest suspension bridge in the world. Only one person died in that tragic event.

You can check out the actual footage in the video below;

8. In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (Made In 2000)

This album is a darker, more pastoral, and even more, elegiac version of the previous album “Music Has the Right to Children”.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Kid For Today

Amo Bishop Roden

In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country

Zoetrope

Scary Fact: The picture found under the CD version of the album is thought of being a cropped out picture of David Koresh, the person that controlled a church and ended up killing everyone inside, as discussed in the Geogaddi 1969 track reference in the section above.

I overlayed the two pictures on top of each other to see if there is a resemblance, what do you think? The end of the frame fo the glasses looks pretty darn similar, the image on the right is a darkened version of the original and the thing that really gives it away is the hair that comes swooping down in a curl. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

The first two images on the left were found here: http://bocpages.org/wiki/In_a_Beautiful_Place_out_in_the_Country_(release)

9. Trans Canada Highway (Made In 2006)

This album is described by Boards of Canada and WARP Records label like the following;

“It visits a darker place, a glacial place, away from the warmth and light of The Campfire Headphase.”

The album was named after the Canadian highway system. It’s basically a set of highways that go throughout all of Canada.

The image was found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway

The cover photo for this album is believed to be copied from an automobile manufacturer called “Dodge”, to be specific, their car instruction manual from 1977.

Fun fact: The last track on this album was a remix of the first track “Dayvan Cowboy”, it took Odd Nosdam a WHOPPING 6 months to complete.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Dayvan Cowboy

Left Side Drive

Heard From Telegraph Lines

Skyliner

Under The Coke Sign

Dayvan Cowboy (Odd Nosdam Remix)

Fun fact 2: For the cover picture of track “Left Side Drive”, some people also refer to the tracks initials to stand for LSD. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

Weird fact: I was researching the Canadian highway system through Google, as you normally do, and I stumbled upon a familiar image, then I realized that it was the cover art for the track “Left Side Drive”. That bridge is the bridge of the Banff National Park, which are a series of bridges around the world that aren’t used by humans or vehicles but are used by animals to cross safely without being killed, preserving wildlife as much as possible. Also worth noting that Banff is also the location where the cover photo for BOC’s album “Music Has The Right To Children” as explained above in the section talking about that album.

The 2 images on the right were found here:

https://mymodernmet.com/wildlife-crossings/

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/banffs-famed-wildlife-overpasses-turn-20-world-looks-canada-conservation-inspiration

Upon my further investigation, this is the actual Trans-Canada Highway and then in my head I’m like ‘Why is it called Left Side Drive, if in the picture it shows the car moving on the right-hand side”, so then I researched on what side of the road do they dive on in Canada, and I found out it was the right side, but the interesting thing is that I then found out that their steering wheel is on the left-hand side, and also in the picture it looks like it was taken from the middle of the road, perfectly explaining “Left Side Drive”. Also worth noting that the side that the picture was taken from is going towards the Banff National Park. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

You can check out the actual place with this pin I made on google maps.

Live Albums

10. Peel Session (Made In 1999)

This album was broadcasted live in 1998 through a radio station in London called “BBC Radio 1”, the host at the time was called John Peel. It was then released through the WARP Records label in 1999 to the public.

This is also around the time that the brothers moved back to Scotland and have been there ever since.

All 3 of the officially released songs were in the previous album “Music Has The Right To Children” 1 year ago from this official release.

Two of the songs, Aquarius and Olson, are remixes of the originals from that album and the track “Happy Cycling” on the 1999 release is different from the one first broadcasted in 1998 because it’s more polished.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Aquarius (Version 3)

Happy Cycling

Olson (Version 3)

Weird fact: Another track was played in that broadcast of 1998, but it didn’t show up in the 1999 release under WARP Records. This track was called “XYZ”, and it was their longest (approx 10 minutes) and fastest tempo song in the last 2 years from the moment of the first broadcast. Have a listen below;

The reason why it didn’t manage to get onto the final album was that BOC sampled a song called ‘It Would Be Like Samoa’ by Tangerine Dream, and it had licensing issues because of copyright.

Fun fact: BOC’s ex-third member Christopher Horne also known as “christ.” has a Peel Session as well!

Limited-Release Albums

11. Catalog 3 (Made In 1987)

This is the earliest known production of Boards of Canada known by the public, and none of the public have heard it besides friends and family of the band.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Line Two

Drone 18

Drone 2

Breach Tones

Visual Drone 12

Stowed Under

Powerline

Press

Conspiracy theory: Since the name of the album is called “Catalog 3”, there might be a “Catalog 1” and “Catalog 2” but the public aren’t aware of it. What do you guys think? Leave it in the comment section down below.

12. Acid Memories (Made In 1989)

This is the 2nd known album from BOC, the only track on this album that was actually retrieved was a 27-second snippet of the track “Duffy”

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Duffy

Growing Hand

Petina

Stry Craty Bya

Helter Skater

Echo The Sun

13. Closes Vol. 1 (Made in 1992)

This is the 3rd known album from BOC, this album was never heard by the public, only friends and family of the band.

None of the following songs within the track-list are official since different sources say different versions so it’s not official, just speculation.

The following speculated tracks are within this recording;

Treeline

Godever

True Map

Close 1

5d

Focus On The Spiral

Tends Towards

Close 2

Eye / Ear

Helios Sound

Ithcus Sound

Found The Way

Close 3

Numerator (Original)

Fonec

Trillions

Close 4

14. Play by Numbers (Made In 1994)

This is the 4th known album from BOC, the only track on this album that was actually retrieved was a 56-second snippet of the track “Wouldn’t You Like to Be Free?”

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Remmy Kid

Wouldn’t You Like to Be Free?

Infinite Lines of Colourful Sevens

Numerator

Echelon

15. Hooper Bay (Made In 1994)

This is the 5th known album from BOC and supposably the first time you can hear them use their trademark samples of children’s voices. The only track on this album that was actually retrieved was a 38-second snippet of the track “Circle”

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Seward Leaf

Geiser

Circle

Noatak

Point Hope

16. Boc Maxima (Made In 1996)

This is the latest and last known of limited release early-work album from the band. This is the only one that was retrieved fully.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Wildlife Analysis

Chinook

Rodox Video

Everything You Do Is a Balloon

Boc Maxima

Roygbiv

Nova Scotia Robots

June 9th

Niagara

Skimming Stones

Sixtyniner

Red Moss

Concourse

Carcan

Nlogax

M9

Original Nlogax

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Whitewater

One Very Important Thought

Officially Unreleased Albums

Old Tunes Collection (Made In 1996)

Old Tunes Vol. 1 (aka A Few Old Tunes) and Old Tunes Vol. 2 are a collection of cassettes with multiple songs in them used in commercials and the like. Only family and friends could hear these, they were never released to the public, that is, until in the early 2000’s it was leaked by a user called “Prince Murat”.

Many thought this was fake and not official until a Hexagon Sun representative confirmed it was real after someone tried to sell it on eBay.

The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Side A: Spectrum Light, Clear Hair P:C: Trapped Rodox Video Happy Cycling (Not to be confused with the song of the same name on Music Has the Right to Children and the Peel Session EP) House Of Abin’adab Finity Forest Moon Skimming Stones Carcan Devil Mansel She Is P Davie Addison

Side B: Sac Blockbusters I Will Get It Tattooed The Way You Show I Love U (Original name of ‘The Color of the Fire’ on Music Has the Right to Children) King Of Carnival M9 Original Nlogax (Not to be confused with ‘Nlogax’ on BoC Maxima and Hi Scores) Sequoia Boqurant 5.9.78 Wendy Miller Paul Russell’s Piece Up The March Bank Nova Scotia Robots



The following tracks are within this recording (They are in the right order that they are laid out in officially);

Side A: We’ve Started Up Jimbo Rehearsing Staircase Whip Statue Of Liberty Dave (I’m A Real Traditionalist) Peace-Tony-Devil (Not to be confused with ‘Devil’ on Old Tunes Volume 1) To The Wind Iraq Says Nine-Rubber Wisdom On A Rolling Sea Iced Cooly Beatnik David Came To Mahana’im Sir Prancelot Brainfire North Sea Arbeit Mushyz Heysanna Hosanna Fly In The Pool Mukinabaht It’s A Whole ‘Nother Year

Side B: Kiteracer 2 Bmx Track Hiscores Geometric Piss Zander Two Magic Teens Apparatus Music For Pylons Alpha Rainbow Northern Plastics Buckie High I Love My New Shears Solarium Breaking Nehushtan Orange Hexagon Sun (Not to be confused with ‘Turquoise Hexagon Sun’ from Hi Scores and Music Has the Right to Children) Lick Powerline Misfortune



19. Random 35 Tracks Tape (Made In 1995)

In 2004 a mysterious album called “random 35 tracks tape – rarities and best of (not old tunes v1 or v2)” claiming to be from Boards of Canada, caused a lot of drama within the community and none of the tracks have been confirmed to be fake or real. BOC have not responded to any of the claims, only MDG, a Hexagon Sun member said that they don’t know who put the tracks together, he called it the following;

“It’s a mystery, just a mixture”.

The compiled album has 35 songs on it but most of them are unnamed, and none of the named ones are official.

The following tracks are within this recording;

Side A: Track 1 (Starts at 0:00:00) Track 2 (AKA She is P) (Starts at 0:01:21) Track 3 (Starts at 0:03:34) Track 4 (Starts at 0:07:20) Track 5 (AKA Finity) (Starts at 0:08:11) Track 6 (AKA 5d) (Starts at 0:13:17) Track 7 (Starts at 0:18:11) Track 8 (Starts at 0:22:12) Track 9 (Starts at 0:28:47) Track 10 (Starts at 0:30:37) Track 11 (AKA Blueberry) (Starts at 0:33:37) Track 12 (Starts at 0:34:03) Track 13 (Starts at 0:37:03) Track 14 (Starts at 0:39:16) Track 15 (AKA I Will Get It Tattooed) (Starts at 0:41:03)

Side B: Track 1 (Starts at 0:42:08) Track 2 (Starts at 0:43:37) Track 3 (AKA House of Abin’adab) (Starts at 0:47:30) Track 4 (Starts at 0:48:34) Track 5 (Starts at 0:53:00) Track 6 (Starts at 0:54:53) Track 7 (Starts at 0:55:15) Track 8 (Starts at 0:58:59) Track 9 (Starts at 0:59:56) Track 10 (AKA Smallest Weird Number) (Starts at 1:03:10) Track 11 (Starts at 1:04:08) Track 12 (Starts at 1:07:40) Track 13 (AKA Davie Addison) (Starts at 1:11:13) Track 14 (Starts at 1:12:18) Track 15 (Starts at 1:15:41) Track 16 (Starts at 1:17:45) Track 17 (AKA It’s Too Orangey) (Starts at 1:20:05) Track 18 (Starts at 1:20:25) Track 19 (Starts at 1:22:28) Track 20 (Starts at 1:23:50)



Fun fact: Many fans have often refered to this compliation of tracks as “Closes Volume 2” and “A few Old Tunes Vol. 3”.

Need a Guide on What Album to Listen to Depending on Your Mood?

Below are two variations of fan-made mind-maps to help you explore the band’s music right;

Images were found here; http://mu-flowcharts.blogspot.com/2012/02/boards-of-canada.html

Who Influenced Their Sound?

BOC have mentioned a handful of entities in various interviews that have had an influence on their craft. Here are some of the entities that were mentioned;

Alias

Aphex Twin

Autechre

Beach Boys

Bibio

Bob Dylan

Boom Bip

Butterscotch Rum

cLOUDDEAD

Cocteau Twins

Consolidated

DAF

DEVO

Fennesz

Front 242

HR Giger

James Taylor

Jeff Wayne

John Denver

Joni Mitchell

Joy Division

Julian Cope

Meat Beat Manifesto

My Bloody Valentine

Nitzer Ebb

Odd Nosdam

Phil Spector

Pixies

Radiohead

Siouxise and the Banshees

Stevie Wonder

Sufjan Stevens

Talk Talk

The “Picnic at Hanging Rock” soundtrack

The Beatles

The Incredible String Band

The Polyphonic Spree

Wendy Carlos

William Basinski

Wim Wenders

Who Sounds Similar To Them?

The only few that really come close to their sound is their alias of “Hell Interface”, and their ex-group member by the name of “christ.”. Obviously, some of these musicians were mentioned above to have had an influence over their work, and some of these artists are signed under the same labels like them, so there are some similarities within the sound, but not as a complete artist, since Boards of Canada as a whole are very distinct.

What do you guys think? Is there anyone that sounds similar to them that I have not mentioned in this list? Leave it in the comment section down below.

You can check out more artists that sound similar to them from this link.

Aphex Twin

Autechre

Squarepusher

Four Tet

Brian Eno

Bonobo

Tycho

Plaid

Flying Lotus

Sigur Ros

Bibio

Massive Attack

Amon Tobin

Portishead

Radiohead

Jon Hopkins

Dj Shadow

Bjork

Prefuse 73

Burial

Christ

Future Sound Of London

Hell Interface

Also if you go on Spotify on their profile, then go to the “Related Artists” tab, you can see more suggestions.

Who Did They Sample?

The following are some of the tracks that snippets were used to help aid their craft throughout their work;

Aquarius by Galt MacDermot and Ren Woods (1979)

O Is for Orange from Sesame Street (1988)

Many Me’s from Sesame Street (1976)

Arizona Sheepherders from Sesame Street (1990)

Blueberry by Boards of Canada (1995)

Timeless by John Abercrombie (1974)

Getaway by Earth, Wind & Fire (1976)

On Your Face by Earth, Wind & Fire (1976)

Trapped by Colonel Abrams (1985)

Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life by Indeep (1982)

The Heavens by Weird Tapes (2008)

Celebration by Kool & the Gang (1980)

Simulator Music by Konichi (2013)

Orange Hexagon Sun by Boards of Canada (1996)

Christmas Formal !? from Social Seminar: Tom (1972)

You’re Putting Me On! from Season of the Witch (1972)

MetroMedia Television 11 (Jingle) from WTCN-TV (1975)

Karn Evil 9 by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1973)

When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin (1971)

I Love You from Sesame Street (1988)

Holts from Nature (1983)

Flashback by Imagination (1981)

He’s a Dream by Shandi (1983)

Credits from Nature (1983)

B10 by Boards of Canada (1995)

Falling in Love Again by Techno Twins (1981)

Children and God by Tony Schwartz (1967)

Now That the Show Is Over from Brief Affair (1982)

The Dead Suite by John Harrison (1985)

Mickey by Toni Basil (1981)

Snuffy Asks Wanda How She Got Her Job from Sesame Street (1992)

Pick Up Object (Sound Effect) by Matt Furniss and Shaun Hollingworth (1992)

Bonus by Matt Furniss and Shaun Hollingworth (1992)

FEMA Camp Footage from America Under Siege (1994)

Hosanna by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice (1973)

Dive to the Edge of Creation from National Geographic Specials (1980)

Whose Songs Did They Remix?

These are the main remixes that Boards of Canada has done;

What Equipment Do They Use?

The following are just mainly speculations on what tools they use to craft their beautiful music. Since they do little touring and are very secretive on their personal life and what happens behind the scenes, that the little knowledge we have on this topic would be gained through images of them while performing on rare occasions, interviews where they were asked regarding their gear, and on the back of some of their releases.

If you want more knowledge regarding this topic, head over to this link.

Keyboards / Synthesizers Yamaha CS80 CS-70M CS1x AN1x Roland SH-101 Crumar



Tape Decks Grundig TK 1 Luxus TK 5 Tascam 4-track MSR-16 Revox Recorder Cassette Recorder



They were not specific on what 4-Track model of the Tascam brand, or Cassette Recorder they use;

Samplers Yamaha A3000 Akai S1000 S3200



Native Instruments

They were not specific on what instruments form the brand “Native” they use;

Software Apple Logic Pro 7



Guitar Taylor Big Baby Acoustic Guitar



Percussion

They were not specific on what percussion instruments they use;

All the above images within the equipment section were found here:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/cs70m.php

https://www.musictech.net/reviews/rewind-roland-sh-101/

http://dmaudio.co.uk/product/yamaha-cs1x-gm-compatible-keyboard/

https://equipboard.com/items/yamaha-an1x

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/apple-logic-pro-7-preview

https://www.dawsons.co.uk/taylor-big-baby-acoustic-guitar-natural

https://en.audiofanzine.com/analog-multitrack/tascam/MSR-16/user_reviews/r.64669.html

https://www.retrothing.com/2005/11/revox_a77_my_fa.html

http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Grundig/TK1/

https://fr.audiofanzine.com/sampleur/akai/S1000/

https://reverb.com/item/1933665-akai-s3200-midi-stereo-digital-sampler-used-as-is

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/cs80.php

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MojoXT–crumar-mojo-xt

Where Can You Listen To Them?

You can listen to their amazing music on the following platforms;

YouTube

Spotify

Google Play Music

Deezer

TuneIn

Boards of Canada’s Artwork

How Would One Describe Their Artwork?

Their Visuals

Disclaimer: The following can be applied in combination to achieve their look, but not every artwork has every trait, but it’s pretty accurate from the research I’ve done dissecting each of their images to see what makes them, well, them.

Their artwork seems to be focused on the past rather than the future with their retro style of everything, it’s like even for their futuristic space scene cover art for their first public album “Twoism”, it still looks like it was in the past rather than the future with the old camera technology and retro equipment on set to create that decayed nostalgic feeling.

The Environment That The Pictures Were Taken In

They are never in cities or anything urban around them, they are in an environment that is hard to come by, such as nature (like a barren wasteland such as the backdrops of the “Fallout” game), or retro structures, or military vehicles and equipment, or abandoned buildings, just things that are obsolete and timeless in a sense, a sense of nostalgia that there is no human activity within these areas, a sense of human extinction.

Some of the images are usually taken in a natural environment, whether it be desert landscapes with a flat plane or a mountainous landscape, both environments are usually with clear or plane color skies and the subject is usually far away from the landscape so it’s not a shot where dept is minimal, quite the contrary, the dept is vast, to help aid that isolated feeling, despite being in an open area.

In between the subject and the landscape is a type of fog or faint washed out color depending on how far back the landscape it, similar to the odd vibe of the horror movie “Silent Hill”.

Some are taken at sunset where the subject or the foreground is a slight or full silhouette, or where the sun is directly behind, between them or on the sides of the frame that create a glare effect causing their features to subside and get covered by the glare, leaving a silhouette or slight silhouette of the subjects.

Some are taken in or next to or around retro looking caravans with no paint on them just exposed metal, military fighter jets, satellite and transmission stations, alien-shaped sky observatory stations, abandoned buildings, bunkers or industrial retro building types, etc..

The Subjects That Are In The Pictures

It’s either the brothers themselves or middle-aged humans or children in a group or few to one of them facing the camera directly or turning around towards the camera, hands usually just let go of, therefore just hanging side by side.

All the subjects have this theme with showing minimal features of the face, whether it be a sun glare that overthrows the subjects features, or a slight silhouette, or putting an uncanny retro feature-lacking mask, or even completely removing the features of the face by blurring it out heavily.

The thing that makes this so unsettling and uncanny, is that when you can’t read the emotion of a humans face, you don’t know what their intent is, you don’t know how to read who they are, and what they are doing, whether they are a threat or a blessing. Also, the body language helps take home this unsettling feeling because the subjects are staring right at you point blank, and their arms and posture are let go of, further not knowing of their true intent.

Some of the artwork doesn’t have a human subject as per-say, but they have illustrations and graphics, whether it be geometric shapes such as their favorite hexagon, or psychedelic trippy retro fractals such as the cover art for their most controversial album of “Geogaddi”.

The Effect That The Pictures Have

Exposure

The shadows or dark parts of the artwork are usually more faded, in the sense that they are not completely black, they are more towards the grey side, in order to have a sense of decay in the film.

Sometimes they have over-exposed highlights, meaning the lightest part of the image is pumped up to be super bright, sometimes removing features of the image, and overflowing towards the black parts of the image.

Also sometimes they have this glowing luminescent effect in their artwork where it looks like sun glare or the lens of the camera is smudged in oil from the fingertips.

Colors

They usually have washed out colors.

Sometimes they have one of the following;

Green / Yellow / Turquoise vibe

Sepia vibe

Black and white vibe

Overlay

They usually have this overlay over their artwork, this is usually like an old film camera grain, or grain in general, or an ambient water-glistening type, or just an old film texture to help make the artwork look even more decayed and chopped.

Lens

Sometimes they use a fish-eye lens.

Medium

The type of cameras or medium they print the artwork on differs greatly, but the main gist of it is to be as retro looking as possible. Some images have this dark red tint on them and they have this kind of bleed of colors that cross between each other since in the past they had cameras with actual film rolls in them and when they get them physically printed at a store, the colors sometimes cross between each other. (This type of printing is called CMYK halftone printing, it’s a traditional way of printing where you physically use blotches of ink to make up an image from a distance.) (Also if shooting videos, they use 80’s VHS Cam-Corders or VHS Handy-Cams, the colors also bleed and you can see in some of the images below)

From the research I’ve done regarding the type of photography that was being taken for some of these shots, the following keywords have been found in relation to the nostalgic vibe;

You can search any of these tags through Tumblr to get the best results.

#film

#film photography

#fuji superia 400 premium

#kodak film

#kodak

#kodak gold

#nikon l35af

#nikon 16mm fisheye

#nikon f3 film

#canon eos 300

#vx1000

#disposable camera

#vhs

#analog

#analog photography

#35mm

#35mm film

#point and shot

#90s

#80s

#vintage

#nostalgia

#lo fi

#grunge

#grain

I found this guy through my research on this type of nostalgic grunge photography and his photographs are really dope, check him out for sure.

Here is some footage on what this type of aesthetic is;

Here’s footage on how they develop the film in a “dark room”;

Here’s a video about how colored film came about;

Some of the images have this deep decay in them, similar to the images from the 1986 nuclear disaster of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, Russia.

Also, some of the images have just an overexposed solid black and white print on paper with black ink but in the form of physical separate dots to create shadows and the sort. (It’s the same as halftone printing but they only use black ink to make up the highlights and shadows of the image and anything in between white and black (grey))

All of the above images within the artwork section were found here:

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/boards-of-canada-host-a-tomorrows-harvest-listening-party-in-the-california-desert

https://hyponik.com/news/boards-of-canada-return-with-new-album-tomorrows-harvest/

https://twitter.com/boctransmission

https://www.stereogum.com/1334082/boards-of-canada-treasure-hunt-gets-really-complicated/news/

https://www.warp.net/videos/1055766-boards-of-canada-reach-for-the-dead

https://twitter.com/boctransmission/status/933710555675791360

http://www.self-titledmag.com/2013/06/03/read-50-of-our-favorite-comments-from-boards-of-canadas-tomorrows-harvest-stream/

https://bocpages.org/wiki/The_Campfire_Headphase

https://www.nts.live/artists/1054-boards-of-canada

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/384424518176275024/

https://www.mobygames.com/game/fallout-4/promo/imageType,1/promoImageId,11969/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boards_of_Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAkgUeJDgQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aPzccvGv8U

http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/news/friday-dispatch-news/art-now-sophie-michael-trip-light-fantastic-tate-britain/

https://www.misterretro.com/filters/permanent-press/halftone-effects

https://dribbble.com/shots/2540228-Color-Halftone-Eye-Eye-68

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/06/chernobyl-disaster-photos-1986/590878/

https://publicide.com/halftone/

Their Sound

How Would One Describe Their Sound?

One can describe their sound with the following;

Creepy

Scary

Uncanny

Strange

Dream-Like

Unsettling

Eerie

Nostalgic

Mysterious

Sci-Fi

Faded

Retro

Deja Vu

Surreal

Organic

Decayed

Trippy

Numbed Out

Thought-Provoking

Ambient

Having A Vision

Hallucinogenic

Ghostly

Disturbing

Sinister

Weird

Spooky

Recollection

Lucidity

Glowing

How To Sound Like Them?

Disclaimer: I personally don‘t know much about producing sounds or the terminology for it, but I can try to describe what I know;

In general, their sound has this retro degraded and distorted feel to it on purpose.

Their sound has a constant echo to it like the sound residue is being smudged through each sound they produce, and to add to that echo, they have layers of these constant sounds to fill in the blanks sort of, like there is no in-between of silent parts of the track, it’s like the sounds flow seamlessly into each other to create this flowing, glowing feeling.

The sounds also have this decayed and distorted feel to them, as well as this type of wobbling or pulsing effect, sort of like a phasing effect where the sound isn’t at a constant pitch, it moves around that constant line to create this imperfect vibe, a retro vibe. One of their techniques is to record any audio through a video cassette, then they play is back from old equipment such as a VHS player or a TV or even old speakers. This playback of sound is then done in some environments such as a room with specific conditions that were then recorded through one or multiple microphones. The sound is similar to the “tracking” operation VHS players, that create this mild phasing effect.

They use a lot of bass intensive sounds, and some of the sounds are like noisy in the sense like they are being scrunched by a paper or something, sort of a grunge feel to it.

Sometimes they reverse the sounds to have this particular effect. They also have some percussion going on with kicks, snares, and the sort.

Overall these decayed constant phasing sounds and bass, there’s usually a lighter melody weather a piano or guitar type playing on top of it still with a lot of echo in it.

They have a lot of background sound, like nature sounds or people talking in the background like in a public area, or just background noise from the environment they are in.

The prominent voices are usually from children being somewhat excited or happy, or middle-aged people with monotone formal voices speaking with mellow content. Usually taken from retro 70’s or 80’s television shows, documentaries, or anything else that they both watched and shared as brothers growing up.

If you want to know more about how to sound like BOC, I suggest you check out the following links here, here, and here to gain a better, more in-depth understanding of the music process.

Here are some resources as a guide to sounding similar to BOC;

Who Makes Their Artwork?

Their own artistic collective of Hexagon Sun does their artwork, in other words, they make their own cover art.

Boards of Canada’s Community

Who Did Remixes Of Them?

These are the following remixes that there are of BOC;

Here are a few weird ones in reverse;

Possible conspiracy theory? Tell me what you think in the comment section down below

Who Used Snippets / Samples Of Them in Their Songs?

These are the following songs that have snippets or samples of BOC in them;

Do They Have Compilations Of Their Discography?

BOC fans have made a few compilations, the following are worth mentioning since they are fire;

Boards of Canada’s Past Inside The Present

Comment down below if you got the joke.

Are They Still Together And Is The Band Still Making Music?

Yes, on June 23rd of this year, 2019, Boards of Canada did a live 2 hour broadcast for WARP Records 30th Anniversary. This was mentioned in the top section of this article when talking about what labels they are signed to, you can check out the 2 hour broadcast in that section as well.

Do They Still Do Live Performances?

BOC, throughout their careers, have only performed live a few amounts of times. What makes these live shows special is the fact that they are rare to see and also they play music no one in the world has ever heard before and this music often happens to be their most fascinating tracks.

The following are the live shows they have ever done, in order from the earliest to the latest just this year, form the date of the release of this article;

Peel Session (1998) (This live show is discussed in the above section where we talked about the band’s only live album called “Peel Session”)

Warp’s 10th Anniversary: The Incredible Lighthouse Party (1999) (This live show is discussed in the above section where we talked about the band’s record labels, specifically that of WARP Records)

All Tomorrow’s Parties at Sussex (2001)

Warp’s 30th Anniversary: Societas x Tape (2019) (This live show is discussed in the above section where we talked about the band’s record labels, specifically that of WARP Records)

Amazing fact: The “All Tomorrow’s Parties at Sussex” live performance had the biggest amount of unreleased tracks, it was 5 tracks unknown and 7 known, therefore half of their show was all new music to our beloved ears.

Conclusion

After doing extensive research on the topic of Boards of Canada, I have a new and deeper appreciation for the brothers’ effort in bringing us the most beautiful and thought-provoking music that the world has to offer.

Their participation within the community is amazing, all these subliminal messages, conspiracies, & long and complicated worldwide effort puzzles keep the community rich and vibrant, leaving me and the viewers in wonder.

Their music is a puzzle waiting to be solved.

If you have come this far in the post, I give you the “Music Boy” badge, well done, you deserved it.

Now go enjoy the music that is Boards of Canada!

References