Boards of Canada - 'Geogaddi' C/D

obv. you crawled out of the womb a full grown, embittered adult then.

If you're going to wander round the internet looking for BoC bootlegs, personally I'd recommend nabbing their rather fine live sets from ATP and the Warp party instead unless you find something that's definitely real, but that's just me. The recordings clip a bit, ok, a lot in places but, damn, they're gorgeous. BoC can make me feel closer to tears (in a good way) with a single note than pretty much anyone else around can with an entire track. And this post is really shittily written, even more so than usual, but it is nearly 8am, and I need sleep. Must resist. Must get bodyclock back to GMT.

Have also just nabbed a new Clinic track - "Welcome", which used to be called Jouster - and, oh my God, you can hear WORDS! Lots of them! In sentences! All that on the first listen! Oh my God! Sellouts, heh heh. (Not really. I like it.)

Macros, Tim. Macros.

*flounces off in huff*

Oh, it's not only me, then. I mean it sounds nice enough and 'roygbiv' is lovely but overall it can't keep my attention for very long. I keep thinking I just need to persevere with it and it will click into place.

Okay, serious question time: why do you find Boards Of Canada uninteresting? Do you find them monochromatic/one-trick-ponyish? Have you heard others do their thing better? Are you turned off by their facelessness? I really want to understand, because I can't fathom anyone not finding them gorgeous.

I really think I must listen to that album again before arguing against them. It's just that it didn't grab me on first and second listen. And that's about all the chance I give things these days.

i sympathize with tom over possibly wanting "evocativeness" in music to be accidental. usually i find stabs at such "atmospherics nostalgia" to be tedious in the extreme. all i can say is their one trick schtick (and that's what it is) works for me, tremendously. and they could do it to the end of time and i'd be happy.

Incidentally if that balloon track was on the Skam EP, why wasn't it on Music HTRTC?

but does it evoke any childish memories for anyone?

-------

Absolutely does for me (that "soccer kids lost in the suburbs" comment on BoC Classic or Dud still is on the money). I found it a bit uncanny that more people have had the same impressions. Their sounds probably were used all the time on 70s tv. It's in the sounds though because I never read anything about Boc and childhood nostalgia until after I heard the album.

Can someone (Robin C?) sort this out authoritatively once and for all. If it's there it's way too subtle for me. Even the Canadian Film Boards music that i've heard isn't too like BoC, on the other hand BoC DOES go well with the visuals of some of them (esp the more abstract chalky/snowy visuals).

ACtually, now i think about it, PLEASE DON'T prove this to me as it would put me off one of my all time fave albums :-(

Haven't heard it since I've never lived in Canada ;) But I meant 70s tv music in general. More specific though: children's programma's like Barbapappa, or Dutch shows none of you know of course or even the wicked sound the German tv clock used to make, and indeed those science documentaries Melissa mentions.

if you mean "BoC sometimes sound a bit like 70s Radiophonic Workshop", you're right.

I love 'em, pretty much. But I think they're best at their funkiest and even with a slight early hip-hop / electro influence, stuff which isn't on MHTRTC.

I'm happy, I'm very happy.

Strange I thought 'Music has a Right' was real easy to get into, maybe because I immediatly flashed to that feeling of childhood melancholia. I dunno, with those melodies it doesn't seem that forbidding?

organic stuff. BUT we got it at the wrong speed so it seems. should be 45 rpm. never mind. BOC rules. saw them in 2000 @ the lighthouse party, it was gr8!! My guess = some of the songs they played @ the lighthouse will be featuring on the new album. Im an old geezer whos in the IDM bizz(listening)for too long. JMJ kraftwerk and loads of otherbands "plugged music" ive heard them all. but BOC = so well fabricating with those happy/sad layers. This = in my opinion "soulfood" @ least 4 me it =.BoC are few of the people in de musicscene who really control everydimension in it. The layers, the depth, the warmth and so on... THis is primitive electronic music, which wakes up the youth in you even when your youth = recent.

Just my 2 eurocents.

BTW Please has anybody got a copy of the lighthouse gig????

Feel free 2 contact me.

no its great. zoetrope on there is really great too

i totally need the EP. so i guess i should look up the thread but it seems Campfire whatever is not so good?

hmm i can't find a thread on it

yesss i just heard Beautiful Place for the 1st time in a while, and notwithstanding the repeated children's laughter sample (i have no problem with the concept of children's laughter as a schtick, i just feel like u can vary the sample up), this track reallllly makes me happy. 2nd listening now

I put all my BoC stuff on shuffle these last few days and I have to say the 'Campfire' stuff actually holds up. Maybe it works better when interspersed with the older weirder stuff.

I have the Nick Warren in Reykjavik cd and on it, he does a beautiful mix from Ulrich Schnauss's "Nobody's Home" to BoC's "Happy Cycling", and it works perfectly, its like the two songs were made for each other.

I don't get it. It sounds like new age music.

Well done you.

I don't get Wolfmother, it sounds like guitars.

No wait, did I say guitars, I meant shit.

Campfire Headphase is awesome, it just wasn't what people wanted/were expecting.

Several years on, I started listening to this album again. It's pretty amazing; I don't really know why I let it drop off of my play rotation so quickly.

I want sth new from these guys. I really came to love the Trans Canada Highway EP

I never really understood why BoC became the naivist IDM act everyone loved? What made them different/better from predecessors like Black Dog or Mouse on Mars or Child's View? Granted, I've only heard Music Has the Right to Children and Geogaddi, but to me there's nothing particularly new or original about those albums.

They're both very good though, perhaps that was enough?

None of those other acts were particularly nostalgic though (afaik iirc), BoC really excelled with that aspect.

yeah - you seem to be missing the point to some extent. BoC = nostalgia + general "warped" creepiness + exhiliration of the great outdoos

They're a lot less of a product of the literal dancefloor than The Black Dog (a lot of their fanbase weren't clubbers), a lot easier to get a handle on than MoM, and I've never heard of Child's View

To me the nostalgia aspect of BoC felt kinda cheap and too obviously executed, at least compared to other nostalgic electronic acts such as 310 or Nobukazu Takemura/Child's View, who did the wistful/creepy remembrance of things past thing with more originality. I'm not saying any of this made BoC a bad act, I just didn't understand why they were treated as something exceptional.

Oh OK I know that dude, don't have anything by him as Child's View tho

a lot easier to get a handle on than MoM

Well, this was exactly the thing that made MoM or 310 more interesting than BoC. To me, IDM beats, simplistic synth washes and offbeat samples felt like too easy and obvious formula to reach a particular sound, whereas MoM and some other acts took a more interesting route there.

Yeah, you seemed to be saying 'how come they got popular' back there, so that was my answer... MoM always seemed to have a built-in sense of sabotaging their accessibility. 310 never did much for me but maybe if they'd been the default 3am choice at every fucking house party from like 1998 to basically now I might think of them in a slightly different context, I dunno

BoC were/ are more hip hop influenced, whcih perhaps provided an "in" for non-IDM heads?

I have fond memories of listening to "alpha and omega" on repeat while playing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T3woiAcaE0

for some reason, the visuals are kind of perfect.

...but I still hate the track right after "alpha and omega" w/the baby sounds!

in fact, lots of the little segue bits don't work for me, now that I think of it. esp. towards the beginning of the album.

but towards the end we get gorgeous stuff like "corsair" (I've always wanted to hear a whole album of little mini ambient tracks like this one) and the more fleshed-out stuff is all pretty killer. so, it's all good.

>What made them different/better?

The hip hop influence that Neil cites is definitely an element of this (and I'd include RnB in there too); BoC's rhythmic sense is incredibly varied, compared to most IDM, yet avoids the showing off and technical-for-its-own-sake beat programming that makes some electronica tiresome to listen to.

I think the other crucial factor is that BoC's use of melody is very adept and distinctive - their songs and remixes are instantly recognisable, which is unusual in a largely instrumental genre. They're brilliant at including compact and catchy melodies in their songs and knowing exactly how long to let tracks build before dropping these in (eg. Happy Cycling's final section). They also squander some great tunes in the coda of songs; the outro of their Last Walk Around Mirror Lake remix has a hook that most other people would build a whole song around. This might seem trite, but at a time when loads of other electronica artists were deliberately making their music more "ugly" (cf. drill and bass), BoC's consistently tuneful and "beautiful" sound was almost unique - it doesn't surprise me at all that they became so popular and well regarded, or that they are still held in such high esteem.

^^^^ :-)

Bullseye.

a lot easier to get a handle on than MoM

Well, this was exactly the thing that made MoM or 310 more interesting than BoC

Interesting to you, grating to others. (I stopped liking MoM after Audiotacker). I mean it seems like you're asking "why doesn't everyone like kooky stuff like me?"

more like "why did this get popular when it does not directly appeal to my specific tastes?"

Interesting to you, grating to others. (I stopped liking MoM after Audiotacker).

I think MoM got worse after Autoditacker too, but Autoditacker is still better than anything I've heard from BoC. And it's not particularly kooky or "difficult", I know people with zero interest in IDM who still like that album.

This might seem trite, but at a time when loads of other electronica artists were deliberately making their music more "ugly" (cf. drill and bass), BoC's consistently tuneful and "beautiful" sound was almost unique

This is probably correct, but I still think Child's View/Nobukazu Takemura still did the tuneful/beautiful thing better (and before BoC too).

Anyway, I'm sorry for derailing this thread, I'll stop now.

You at least gave me someone to check out!
I don't think I've even bothered to rip Audiotacker (though I probably should. at least a couple tracks worth hearing again), whereas BoC is some of my favorite shit to this day. I'm old and would rather hear "soothingly pleasant and nostalgic" than "interesting", y'know?

Plus, "interesting" stuff tends to lose that value after a couple listens.

I dunno, BoC's appeal to my ears isn't based on how "beautiful" or soothing their music is (except maybe for Campfire Headphase). There' something pretty startling about their music

I played BoC for a friend the other day and it creeped him the puck out.

^^ Creeping friends out is good. I'm with Baaderonix on this one: the startling aspect of BoC's music is what makes it so geat.

I'm listening to the sample clips on Amazon of Funfair by Child's View, and it's super annoying. Is there another album I should be checking for? Is it all like that? Or are the clips unrepresentative?

What're you all meaning by "startling" though?

xpost

imo Child & Magic is a much stronger album than Funfair. but with its emphasis on field recordings and jarring stylistic shifts, it might annoy you even more — who knows? you can hear clips of it here.

Still got a lot of love for 'Geogaddi'.

Lives 1969 off this.

Wharves happened to them?

Heh, I was about to come in and mention how I randomly heard '1969' yesterday and still love it.

Lives 1969 off this.

Wharves happened to them?
--Naive Teen Idol

wharves happened to them

fished to extinction

how have we never polled this

do it up paul!

I may! I'm trying to avoid procrastinating today but I'll try to post one later if no one else does first

poll is now live: Geogaddi: The Poll