STAFF PICK "One of those rare albums that oscillate seamlessly between cold and disconcerting, and warm and nostalgic. Side note, Sixtyten's percussion loop has got to be close to unrivalled" Isaac
The first American release by this Scottish duo drew rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. The music ranges from goofball, Perry-Kingsley style retro-techno to ambient (in fact, sometimes eerily reminiscent of Eno's "Ambient Music I") to just about anything else you can dream up for a couple of synthesizers and a drum machine. Boards Of Canada's music has drawn frequent comparisons to wildlife documentaries from the '70s, but you've got to wonder what kind of nature documentary would have distorted drum machines and weird voices darting in and out of the mix. Weird? How about downright goofy? Like the nitrous-oxide flashback of "The Color Of Fire" where a distorted girl's voice keeps repeating "I...love...you" through the dizzy haze. Much of the disc has delightful vignettes interspersed between the longer tracks, and the longer tracks will reveal something different with each listen. Unabashedly lo-fi, this is the soundtrack to a drug experience for which no drug exists.
Ranked #91 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[T]hey took electronica into space. Cleverly referencing the esoteric side of '70s Test Card music in all its trippy glory."
Tracklisting:
- Wildfire Analysis
- An Eagle In Your Mind
- The Colour of Fire
- Telephasic Workshop
- Triangles & Rhombuses
- Sixtyten
- Turquoise Hexigan Sun
- Kaini Industries
- Bocuma
- Roygbiv
- Rue The Whirl
- Aquarius
- Olsen
- Pete Standing Alone
- Smokes Quantity
- Open The Light
- One Very Important Thought
