The brothers themselves have always given very few interviews and personal appearances preferring, as the cliche goes, the music to speak for itself. This then has allowed an obsessive fan base to fill in the gaps where information was lacking and create rumours and myths surrounding Boards of Canada's activities, in particular suggesting occult and esoteric meanings behind much of what they do.
In fairness BOC, and certainly Warp records have done little to deny any of this, surely enjoying the cult that has built around them.
The music and artwork provides recurring themes and motifs inviting listeners to search for hidden meanings. Numerology is often invoked with sampled counting, timings of albums (66mins6secs), 23 track albums (a numerologically significant number) geometric shapes (hexagons), and hints that tracks were created using mathematics formula. Colours are also significant with intensely visual yellows, reds and turquoise skies.
BOC are named after a Canadian film company, and the brothers themselves were raised to pre-teens in Canada before moving to the outskirts of Edinburgh, where when a little older they became part of a electronic rave type scene outside of the cultural centre; much like Richard James was doing at the same time in Cornwall.
Unlike the digital electronica of Aphex or Autechre however, BOC go for the more aged sound of analogue equipment and samples from 70's sources, perhaps deliberately aged, but just as technically astounding and detailed as any electronic boffin type.
What was massively influential about the BOC sound was the way it invoked memories of 70's- 80's childhoods simply due to the quality of the sounds and samples (often children playing or old TV documentary voices). It would be hard to imagine the existence of Ghost Box, folktronica, Animal Collective or Oneohtrix without BOC.
Although BOC came from the future music of techno, they create a kind of pastoral electronica, looking back to grand interior statements like Incredible String Band, The Beatles White Album, Robert Wyatt or My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. The rhythms are less techno than a precise downbeat hip-hop like DJ Shadow with Sheffield's bleep and bass production values.
Any music that deliberately evokes memory will always be tinged with melancholy, as BOC have said, 'any music about memory is music about a time that can never come back'. Music has the Right to Children still managed to sound happy and warm, the memories of child's play and summer holidays.
Geogaddi however (the 4 year gestation explained as being due to the exacting perfectionism of the pair al la MBV) was much darker, although it does seem less dark now following the evolution in spooked electronica since!
Geogaddi then, evokes darker memories of childhood. Whereas ROYGBIV from the debut had sampled children counting as if part of a game, Gyroscope on this album seems like a reversal with a more anxious voice counting but seemingly unable to get beyond 9 without finding itself back at 0 again, the funk beat clipped too short to be traditionally groovy.
Music is Math's vocal sample 'the past inside the present' sounds like a spell, with phantasm vocals unable to escape the squelchy beats containing them.
Sunshine Recorder references EP track Beautiful Place in the Country, but the weirdly timestreched vocal and cool reverse spin has the effect of distancing the beautiful place. One persons beautiful place remember is another's Father Yod style sex cult.
Alpha and Omega features some great sampled congas.
The Devil is in the Details could be described as that Chris Morris phrase 'disgusting bliss' which he used for the black comedy series Jam, about the same time as this record and both connected to Warp records. What sounds like a hypnosis session is punctuated by ominous wails and a munching that reminds the listener of what a heavily LSD dosed Brian Wilson must have heard in his head when he recorded Paul McCartney munching celery for the recording of Smile.
Dawn Chorus remains probably my favorite BOC track; blissful funk, an MBV psychedelic swirl of off-colour organ melody and an vocal sample like that bit in Purple Rain where Prince plays Appolonia the tape and she can't tell whether the woman is laughing or crying.
BOC's next album The Campfire Headphase is almost equally as good as Geogaddi and uses more live instrumentation especially strumming and folk sounds.
