Music / Geogaddi

"The past inside the present..."

"I think we try to subtly imply that Geogaddi is the world. A warm mixture divided on the concept of chaos. As if you are viewing something in a state of furious drunkenness, with that particular gaze. Fish and Humans help to form the hexagonal mirror image of the world, as does the presence of birds and all wildlife. It all forms the aforementioned mixture of a chaotic but intricate world."

—Mike Sandison

Geogaddi is the second (publicly available) album by Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada, released in 2002.

While BoC's been noted to make songs with unsettling atmospheres, Geogaddi cranks it up a notch. Satanic/occult themes and drones of dread abound in the album self-described as a "claustrophobic, twisting journey" and a reflection of a chaotic period in the duo's lives. Easily one of their darkest records (alongside Tomorrow's Harvest), it is also one of the most controversial, continuing to inspire debates about its themes and meaning to this day.

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Tracklist:

1. "Ready Lets Go" (1:01)
2. "Music Is Math" (5:23)
3. "Beware the Friendly Stranger" (0:39)
4. "Gyroscope" (3:35)
5. "Dandelion" (1:17)
6. "Sunshine Recorder" (6:14)
7. "In the Annexe" (1:24)
8. "Julie and Candy" (5:32)
9. "The Smallest Weird Number" (1:19)
10. "1969" (4:22)
11. "Energy Warning" (0:37)
12. "The Beach at Redpoint" (4:20)
13. "Opening the Mouth" (1:13)
14. "Alpha and Omega" (7:04)
15. "I Saw Drones" (0:29)
16. "The Devil Is in the Details" (3:55)
17. "A is to B as B is to C" (1:42)
18. "Over the Horizon Radar" (1:10)
19. "Dawn Chorus" (3:57)
20. "Diving Station" (1:28)
21. "You Could Feel the Sky" (5:16)
22. "Corsair" (2:54)
23. "Magic Window" (1:48)
24. "From One Source All Things Depend" ^note Japanese bonus track (2:10)

Personnel:

• Michael Sandison
• Marcus Eoin

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The Devil Is in the Tropes:

• all lowercase letters: All text on the cover is in lowercase.
• Call-Back: "Sunshine Recorder" features a sample of a child saying "a beautiful place" and samples modified to sound like "an eagle in your mind", referencing "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country" and "An Eagle in Your Mind", respectively.
• Darker and Edgier: In comparison to Music Has the Right to Children, with Geogaddi's more uneasy sound and occultist themes.
• Drone of Dread: There's at least one present in every track (with the obvious exception of "Magic Window"); some tracks are little more than a drone.
• Epic Rocking: "Sunshine Recorder" and "Alpha and Omega".
• Fading into the Next Song: "The Beach at Redpoint" into "Opening the Mouth".
  • "The Devil is in the Details" into "A is to B as B is to C" into "Over the Horizon Radar".
  • "Ready Lets Go" into "Music is Math".
• The Immodest Orgasm: The moans in "Dawn Chorus" sound an awful lot like this.
• Miniscule Rocking: "Ready Lets Go", "Beware the Friendly Stranger", "Dandelion", "In the Annexe", "The Smallest Weird Number", "Energy Warning", "Opening the Mouth", "I Saw Drones", "A is to B as B is to C", "Over the Horizon Radar" and "Diving Station".
• Name and Name: "Julie and Candy".
• Number of the Beast:
  • The total runtime of the standard version of the album adds up to 66 minutes and 6 seconds.
    • The effect is lost on the Japanese edition of the album, where the presence of "From One Source All Things Depend" bumps the total to a little over 68 minutes.
  • The total file size of the WAV files on the CD is 666 MB.
  • The ISRC code on the back of the album is "GB1010011010", which is an invalid code. In binary, it translates as 666.
  • In a very subtle way, the release dates of the album also allude to the number. It was released on February 13th in Japan, and 5 days later on February 18th, in the Europe. Revelations 13:18 is the verse of the Bible which first mentions 666 as being the "number of the beast".
• Numbers Stations: "Gyroscope" revolves around samples from the Conet Project, which compiles recordings of such stations.
• One-Word Title: "Gyroscope", "Dandelion" and "Corsair". The album title itself is one word, "Geogaddi".
• Orange/Blue Contrast: Not on the album cover, but the album cover itself when compared to the covers◊ of◊ their◊ other◊ albums◊.
• Red Filter of Doom: The album cover, signifying the sonic difference this album has when compared to their other albums.
• Sampling: Lots of it as per the norm for BoC in this era. Special mentions go to "A is to B as B is to C" featuring an interview with a man who killed a police officer, multiple tracks sampling the 1973 George A. Romero film Season of the Witch, and the "byes" from "Sunshine Recorder" (in turn sampled from Sesame Street) becoming the moans in "Dawn Chorus".
  • Someone on the Twoism website discovered that the crackling sounds in "Beware the Friendly Stranger" are from the 1963 film version of Lord of the Flies.
• Shout-Out: At one point, the official Music70 website referred to "Magic Window" as "Magic Window Fnord", a reference to the Illuminatus! trilogy of books, where people are taught at a young age to ignore the word "fnord" and subsequently experience confusion and discomfort whenever they come across it. Considering that "Magic Window" consists of nothing but pure silence, this suggests that the track itself is actually meant to be an auditory fnord, with listeners conditioned not to hear it.
• Silence Is Golden: As mentioned above, "Magic Window" consists entirely of silence.
• Sinister Geometry: The image◊ on the cover is mirrored hexagonally and tinted red, giving it a downright sinister vibe.
• Sinister Silhouettes: The figures on the album cover are shrouded in ominous silhouette.
• Subliminal Seduction: Several songs feature backmasked samples, with a few tracks becoming noticeably different songs in reverse (and they still "work" quite well, too).
  • "Dandelion" (minus the Leslie Nielsen vocal sample) and "I Saw Drones" were almost certainly recorded, then reversed.
• Title by Year: "1969".
• Vader Breath: "Opening the Mouth" features a recurring sample of a woman's heavy breathing.

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