Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 10 / 2 / 2002

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Review

After a critically acclaimed debut album, an even more acclaimed debut EP and a Peel session, not to mention a headlining slot at last year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, the music industry was desperately interested to know if Boards Of Canada are the future of music. Real music fans have meanwhile been desperate to know if the band will put out anything else as fun to listen to again. On 'Geogaddi' we do not get any hint of a new direction for Boards Of Canada. Essentially, it feels like an extension of their previous works but, at the same time, it is dissimilar. I can’t imagine some of these tracks appearing on the debut. Essentially, there is one subtle difference between the two records and that is their focus. The debut had been deliberately constructed with a single prevalent tone. but the new album feels more diverse. The band hasn’t reinvented their music. but they have extended the template they work within considerably. Admittedly, the band still rely predominately on the relaxed beats,droning organs and keyboards and disturbing sampled vocals that dominated their debut, but this new album is harder to digest,and features many more ideas. Whereas the first record was entirely relaxing,this new record is in equal volume agitating. It is, in short, challenging and that was something which could have said about the band before. A case in point would be the fourth track, 'Gyroscope' that begins with a pounding beat, like a very quiet drum ‘n’ bass track. Gradually an organ drone appears over the top and a high-pitched vocal sample. When I listened to it on headphones it began to make me feel dizzy, seriously. At first, I wondered why the band had disrupted the mood so much. but now I love it. I think that demonstrates the strength of the new record. It is good for pretty much the same reasons as the first record, but if anything the first one was too easy, and became your favourite record after one play. This doesn’t happen on the new record, but it is, as a result, far more meaningful and worthwhile. Electronic music goes straight to the very heart of music, the rhythm and the tone, and dispenses with all the rest. Essentially, melody is ignored. As a result, making good electronica relies on having a rhythm that the listeners can bond with. The listeners either get it or they don’t, and, whilst the music is basically avant- garde, it can’t be too complicated or else we’d have nothing to grab hold of. Consequently, making good electronica requires skill, but it is often 90% luck. Boards Of Canada make the ratio seem more like 60:40. They know instinctively what to fit around the rhythms and know how to sequence the album so that contrasting beats don’t clash with one another, or if they do, they do so in a way that works. There are 22 tracks on the record, but it fits together so perfectly that you know there must be some kind of masterplan. The mind boggles when you think that they started out with 90 tracks, but this, as I have said,is an album of explosions and surprises and one which takes ages to really get involved with. If I were going to be honest, I’d have to say that there is a lot of stuff that I just haven’t spotted yet. Its that subtle you could let it pass you by. It would be easy to pass off this record as another example of weird ‘bleeps and beats’ music, but really it isn’t. These guys are musical geniuses. The last record gave us a hint of where they were heading, and is user-friendlier, but on this new record we get to see how good they really are. It is a record that will unsettle you, and this feeling develops further the more you play it. Questions of album of the year, of the future of the music industry, of hype and of the saviours of music don’t bother me one bit. Boards of Canada will be debated about in various places about all these issues over the next few months, and the band themselves will studiously avoid being drawn into the debate. I don’t care about any of it. All that matters is that this record is finally out and it sounds great.

Track Listing:-

1 Ready Lets Go
2 Music Is Math
3 Beware The Friendly Stranger
4 Gyroscope
5 Dandelion
6 Sunshine Recorder
7 In The Annexe
8 Julie and Candy
9 The Smallest Weird Number
10 1969
11 Energy Warning
12 The Beach At Redpoint
13 Opening The Mouth
14 Alpha and Omega
15 I Saw Drones
16 The Devil Is In The Details
17 A Is To B As B Is To C
18 Over The Horizon Radar
19 Dawn Chorus
20 Diving Station
21 You Could Feel The Sky
22 Corsair
23 Magic Window

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