Line #65 Music/BoardsOfCanada


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d4fa9caee334f6369d50866862383fbe_board_of_canada.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Creating "the last sounds of a dying machine from TheSeventies that just got recently excavated" since TheEighties.]]
3
4	[floatboxright:Influences:
5	+The Incredible String Band, Music/JoniMitchell, Music/TheBeatles, Music/MyBloodyValentine, Music/{{Ween}}, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/{{Devo}}, Music/AphexTwin, Music/TheBeachBoys, Music/{{Clouddead}}]
6
7	->''Come out and live with a religious community in a beautiful place out in the country.''
8
9	Boards of Canada ([=BoC=] for short) are an electronic music duo formed of Scottish brothers[[note]]For a while, they pulled a move akin to Music/TheWhiteStripes and pretended they were just friends; when asked why, they explained that they didn't want to attract needless comparisons to Music/{{Orbital}}, another SiblingTeam electronic band[[/note]] Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, known for their psychedelic, trippy style of downtempo-type music as well as the unique pastoral aesthetic that helped differentiate them from the more synthetic contemporaries of their time.
10
11	Their music often uses a combination of electronic and traditional instrumentation, heavy analogue sound manipulation and processing, trip hop-influenced beats, and frequent {{sampling}}, usually taken from field recordings and old [[TheSeventies seventies]] media. (Their name is actually a nod to such media through the documentaries produced by the Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada, which they were heavily influenced by as their family moved to Canada during their childhood.)
12
13	While the mood evoked by [=BoC=]'s music is usually sunny, optimistic, soothing and vaguely nostalgic, the brothers have been known to dip into [[NightmareFuel darker territories]] well every now and then, especially on ''Geogaddi'' and ''Tomorrow's Harvest.''
14
15	[=BoC=] has existed since 1986, when Marcus joined Mike's band, but ever since 1989 the band has consisted solely of the Sandison brothers. Their early songs were released through self-financed cassette releases on their [=Music70=] label, but since 1998, their albums have appeared through Warp Records.
16
17	Creator/DavidFirth loves them. [[Music/{{Autechre}} Sean Booth]] is also a fan, as he signed them to his label Skam Records and had them open for a few Autechre shows.
18
19	You can now vote for your favourite Boards of Canada album [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/Sandbox/BestAlbumBoardsOfCanada HERE!]]
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21	----
22
23	!! Discography:
24
25	Pre-Warp releases:
26
27	* 1987 - ''Catalog 3''
28	* 1989 - ''Acid Memories''
29	* 1992 - ''Closes Vol. 1''
30	* 1994 - ''Play By Numbers''
31	* 1994 - ''Hooper Bay''
32	* 1995 - ''Twoism'' (re-released in 2002)
33	* 1995(?) - ''Random 35 Tracks Tape''
34	* 1996 - ''Boc Maxima''
35	* 1996 - ''Old Tunes Vol. 1''
36	* 1996 - ''Old Tunes Vol. 2''
37
38	The first five have more or less only been heard by the band and their friends; the last four were never released but all tracks are easily found on the Internet. ''Twoism'' is the only one that was officially released, though several Boc Maxima tracks made it onto ''Music Has The Right To Children''.
39
40	Major Releases:
41
42	* 1996 - ''Hi Scores'' EP
43	* 1998 - ''Music/MusicHasTheRightToChildren''
44	* 1998 - ''Aquarius'' EP
45	* 1999 - ''Peel Session''
46	* 2000 - ''In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country'' EP
47	* 2002 - ''Music/{{Geogaddi}}''
48	* 2005 - ''Music/TheCampfireHeadphase''
49	* 2006 - ''Trans Canada Highway'' EP
50	* 2013 - ''Music/TomorrowsHarvest''
51	----
52	!! Examples:
53
54	* AnAesop: "One Very Important Thought."
55	* ArcNumber: 70. "Sixtyten" is based on how "70" is said in French. ''Geogaddi'' features a song called "The Smallest Weird Number," which happens to be 70 (the song is also exactly 70 seconds long). Before being signed to Warp, they were on their own independent label called [=Music70=], which is still co-credited as the label on [=BoC=] albums.
56	** By extension, 69 ([[{{LOL69}} despite its usual connotations]]) is another number which appears frequently in their song titles. "Sixtyniner," "1969" and "June 9th," which would be written in numbers as '6-9'.
57	* AuthorAppeal: Mike and Marcus are very interested in subliminal messaging, numbers and cults. Expect references to these, especially on ''Geogaddi.''
58	* TheBlank: The cover of ''Music Has The Right To Children'' shows a faceless family, and the persons on the covers of ''Geogaddi'' and ''The Campfire Headphase'' similarly have their facial features obscured or outright blanked out (it's difficult to tell, since, unlike the clearer image of ''Children'', those two album covers have the persons standing at angles that already obscure their face, and are also subjected to heavy visual distortion and filtering).
59	* CallBack: "Sunshine Recorder" features a child chanting the names of two previous Boards of Canada songs ("An Eagle in Your Mind" and "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country").
60	* ChildrenAreInnocent: A recurring theme often either played straight or averted.
61	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Geogaddi'' is considered this, with ''Tomorrow's Harvest'' even more so.
62	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Lots of this in their leaked albums ''A Few Old Tunes'' and ''Old Tunes Vol. 2''. Many of the songs sound nothing at all like what we now know as Boards of Canada, with tracks that sound more like Vaporwave [[note]]decades before the genre even existed[[/note]].
63	** For example: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD7iigP5u74 "Peace-Tony-Devil"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY8ZlGT4Dt4&t=11s "Nine-Rubber Wisdom"]].
64	* ElectronicMusic: But of course.
65	* EpicRocking: While several of the songs on their main albums qualify, some of their other songs/remixes can get quite long.
66	** "Seven Forty Seven," an unreleased song which appeared on [=Warp20=] (Unheard), clocks in at 6:44.
67	** The version of "Chinook" which appears on the "Aquarius" EP is just over 7 minutes long.
68	** "XYZ," from their radio session with Creator/JohnPeel, is ''8 minutes long''.
69	** Though they have never been heard publicly, some of the songs on their earliest albums could be quite long. "Tends Towards" from "Closes Vol. 1," was 8 minutes long, "Infinite Lines Of Colourful Sevens," from "Play By Numbers," was 9 minutes and 18 seconds long and "Line Two" and "Visual Drone 12," both from "Catalog 3," were ''10 minutes'' and ''13 minutes long'', respectively.
70	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Supposedly what "Tomorrow's Harvest" is about.
71	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: "Wildlife Analysis" into "An Eagle In Your Mind."
72	** "Bocuma" into "Roygbiv."
73	** "The Beach at Redpoint" into "Opening the Mouth."
74	** "The Devil is in the Details" into "A is to B as B is to C" into "Over the Horizon Radar."
75	** "Ready Lets Go" into "Music is Math."
76	* GhibliHills: Boards of Canada is arguably the aural equivalent of this. When they're not being terrifying, that is.
77	* GratuitousPanning: Done with the synth lead in "Seven Forty Seven," which only serves to make the whole song more psychedelic.
78	* LastNoteNightmare: Inverted in their remix of Slag Boom Van Loon's "Poppy Seed," beginning with a dark and ominous synth and progressing into a more mellow composition.
79	* MinisculeRocking: All Boards of Canada albums feature at least a few shorter "snippet" songs, usually in the one minute range, that serve as quick explorations of short themes, {{Breather Episode}}s or linking between longer songs. These tend to be just as acclaimed as their "regular" songs.
80	** Likewise, ''Tomorrow's Harvest'' tones down the band's trademark warbly synths for a much colder, darker palette akin to the soundtrack work of Creator/JohnCarpenter, John Harrison and Music/{{Vangelis}}.
81	* NonAppearingTitle: Few of their albums or [=EPs=] feature the album title in a song, ''In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country'', ''Twoism'' and ''Boc Maxima'' being exceptions.
82	* NonIndicativeName: They are from Scotland, not Canada. However, they did move to Canada at a young age and spent much of their childhood there.
83	* NumberOfTheBeast: ''Geogaddi'''s last track "Magic Window" is 1:46 minutes of silence, making the final album length add up to 66:06. WordOfGod claims that [[https://bocpages.org/wiki/Stirred_Up_The_Ashes a silent track was always intended to be at the end of the album]], but the length was a suggestion from Warp Records president Steve Beckett ForTheLulz, to troll the stupid listeners who were scared off by their [[SubliminalSeduction reversing]] and sample manipulation. This joke isn't present on the Japanese version of the album, whose bonus track "From One Source All Things Depend" pushes the length to 68:14; or the vinyl release, which has a blank Side F with an image of a nuclear family to represent Magic Window.
84	* RecurringRiff: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTXDxmp2BYI Track 3]] from "All Tomorrow's Parties" has appeared in several of their songs. Namely "Sixtyniner," "A is to B as B is to C" and in the music used in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7zDh9ftfRY "Quiet"]] commercial.[[note]]And yes, that ''is'' Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio.[[/note]]
85	* {{Sampling}}: Heavy use of this, especially from field recordings, movies, ''Series/SesameStreet'' (yes, really), Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada documentaries, NumbersStations (especially on ''Geogaddi'') and lots and lots of children's voices, as well as more "normal" sampling of other songs ("Aquarius," for instance, is driven by a sample from the ''Theatre/{{Hair}}'' soundtrack). Children's voices were deliberately removed from ''Headphase'', with Marcus explaining that it was meant to avoid being pigeonholed:
86	-->''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.''
87	** "One Very Important Thought" samples the ending of the 1982 adult film ''A Brief Affair'' on the ''Boc Maxima'' version. For ''Music Has the Right to Children'', the sample was slightly re-recorded, [[http://bocpages.org/wiki/One_Very_Important_Thought replacing "would stop you from viewing an adult film" with "would stop you from listening to Boards of Canada."]]
88	** They themselves were sampled twice by [[Music/DestinysChild Solange Knowles]] on her tracks "[[CoverVersion Left Side Drive]]" and "This Bird."
89	* ShoutOut: The group name is a reference to the Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada. Their titles and samples can be pretty heavy on this as well:
90	** "Turquoise Hexagon Sun" and "Orange Hexagon Sun" reference the Hexagon Sun artistic collective, which supposedly includes the band, Iain Campbell, Simon Goderich, Mark Garrett, Rachel Stewart, Alan Mackenzie and Andrew Wilson. The band also use "Hexagon Sun" as the name of their recording studio.
91	** The Branch Davidian cult gets referenced in "Amo Bishop Roden" (she was married to George Roden, who was a rival to David Koresh) and "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country" (whose title and main vocal sample is apparently cribbed from a description of their compound in Waco used by Roden to advertise the cult; the EP's cover also contains a small image of Koresh hidden underneath the CD tray) and "1969" (the vocoded sample "Although not a follower of [[SubliminalSeduction hseroK divaD]], she's a devoted Branch Davidian" is also a reference to Roden).
92	** "Telephasic Workshop," among other things, is suggested by [[http://bocpages.org/wiki/Telephasic_Workshop_(song) the BoCpages fansite]] to be a reference to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, best known for its contributions to ''Series/DoctorWho''.
93	** "Kaini Industries" is a misspelling of Kainai Industries, a Canadian company set up in July 1971 (the month Marcus was born) to provide employment for a Kainai (Blood Nation) reserve.
94	** "Roygbiv" is a famous mnemonic used to remember the order of colours in a rainbow.
95	** "Aquarius" is named that because its primary sample comes from "Aquarius" by Galt [=MacDermot=], from the ''Theatre/{{Hair}}'' soundtrack (specifically, the 1979 soundtrack). This is a bit more noticeable on the ''Aquarius'' EP version (pay attention for the slap bass riff), as the ''Music Has the Right to Children'' version runs the sample through some heavier EQ'ing and processing. The song also uses samples from vintage ''Series/SesameStreet'' episodes (the man saying "orange," kids laughing and saying "yeah, that's right").
96	** "Olson" and "Smokes Quantity" are references to the band's friends Melissa Olson (who directed the "Dayvan Cowboy" video) and an unnamed friend who was nicknamed "Smokes Quantity."
97	** "Pete Standing Alone" is a reference to Pete Standing Alone, a First Nation Canadian who appeared in seven Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada documentaries about the Kainai nation, including ''Circle of the Sun''.
98	** ''Geogaddi'''s title is usually considered to be a {{Portmanteau}} of "Geo-" (Greek for "earth") and "Gaddi," the name of a pacifist, nomadic Hindu tribe from Himachal Pradesh in northwestern India. Its references lean more towards religious symbolism and mathematics ("A is to B as B is to C," "The Smallest Weird Number," "Music Is Math").
99	** The title of ''Tomorrow's Harvest'' is often suspected to be a reference to ''Film/DeadlyHarvest'', an obscure 1977 Canadian film starring a young Creator/KimCattrall about a catastrophic climate change that results in widespread crop failures across North America. This is seemingly reflected further by many of the song titles on the album, such as "Cold Earth," "Sick Times" and "New Seeds."
100	* SiameseTwinSongs: Lots, due to Boards of Canada albums often being very conceptual and designed to be played in a certain order: "In the Annexe"/"Julie and Candy," "Energy Warning"/"The Beach at Redpoint" and "The Devil is in the Details"/"A is to B as B is to C/"Over the Horizon Radar."
101	* SingerNamedrop: "Telephasic Workshop" has a sneaky reference to the band's name, through a vocal sample at 4:39 and 5:17 which says "bordering Canada."
102	* SubliminalSeduction: All of their albums employ heavy use of reversing, which sometimes has landed them in hot water. Notably, some of their shorter songs like "Dandelion" and "Over the Horizon Radar" are made almost entirely of this. [[note]]If re-reversed to hear the original, "Dandelion" turns out to sound a bit like a {{Chiptune}} and "Over the Horizon Radar" is... well, still hauntingly beautiful, but it becomes clearer that its melody is played on a Rhodes keyboard.[[/note]]
103	** Most tracks on Geogaddi either "work" equally well reversed, or were clearly written to be reversed in the first place (like "Dandelion" and "I Saw Drones"). "Corsair" appears to have been reversed ''and'' slowed down.
104	** The other albums are not as reverse-friendly, but reversed vocal samples are common. In addition, at least three songs ("Rue the Whirl," "Satellite Anthem Icarus" and "New Seeds") have a bonus mini-song jammed at the end of the track and reversed.
105	* TeenGenius: Considering the fact that Mike was born in 1971 and Marcus in 1973, they technically started Boards of Canada when they were still teenagers, like their Warp labelmate Music/AphexTwin. (And much like Aphex, it took them a while to find their trademark style.)
106	* TitleTrack: "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country," "Twoism" and "Boc Maxima."
107	* WildMassGuessing:
108	** Possibly one of the most guessed-about bands ever, especially since they love using cryptic song titles, obscure and distorted samples and references to [[NumerologicalMotif numbers]] and cults.
109	** Heck, check out [[http://bocpages.org/wiki/Geogaddi this fansite's page on Geogaddi]], and ''especially'' the page on [[http://bocpages.org/wiki/You_Could_Feel_the_Sky "You Could Feel The Sky"]]'s SubliminalSeduction Satanic themes. Some people have too much time on their hands...
110	* WordSaladTitle: They have a penchant for these.
111	* {{Zeerust}}: Boards of Canada was directly influenced by the National Film Board of Canada's old 1970s music, so this is no surprise.

Context Music / BoardsOfCanada