Think of all the incredible things the average human being could do in the space of 8 years...
You could celebrate just over 7 birthdays for a start.
I’ve no doubt there are a lot of other things as well. The point is, it’s a pretty long while.
Imagine what a pair of Scottish virtuosos could do given the same amount of time.
You’d imagine something epic, like drinking truly ludicrous amounts of IRN BRU or deep frying everything within a 5 mile radius of Inverness.
In the 70,000 hours or so that have elapsed since 2005, brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin have managed to make 62 minutes of music under their Boards Of Canada moniker. 62 minutes. That’s like Nelson Mandela, after 26 years pondering the state of Africa, finally being released from incarceration and presenting a half arsed manifesto for incremental, long term change in South Africa’s road safety legislation.
Delayed gratification only works if the end product is truly something worth waiting for.
Having to wait builds expectations that can rarely be matched.
Now, being somewhat of a veteran when it comes to mind crushing cynicism I was fully prepared to spew a bit of bile, make some mildly racist remarks about the Scottish, put on ‘The Campfire Headphase’ and pretend this whole thing never happened.
No such luck.
Tomorrow’s Harvest is a true return to form, although I’m not sure if you can return to form if you never deviated from it in the first place.
This album is like giving yourself a hug, warm and familiar yet empty and uncomfortable. The sound that Boards have mastered and truly made their own.
There are nods to their glory days like the 1970’s infomercial fanfare that kickstarts proceedings, stuttering vocals and the familiar sound of the Roland SH-101 synthesiser peppered throughout. The purely instrumental vignettes that glue the tracks together are of the standard, glorious fare we’ve all come accustomed to and the droning, uneasy synthscapes are plucked right out of 1998.
However, there’s something about this offering that seems different. It feels darker and much more definite. It feels as though the last 8 years have been spent painstakingly mastering every sombre, lonely drone to the point of absolute precision.
It’s this combination of sharp production techniques and desolate atmospherics that make the theme of this LP so distinct.
If, heaven forbid, Google does become sentient and chooses to turn our nuclear weapons against us for the ‘greater good’ I couldn’t imagine a better soundtrack to accompany an endless trek across the barren wastelands. This album encapsulates and invokes the beauty of isolation and in turn makes it one of the best Boards Of Canada releases to date.
If you have to wait until 2021 for a new album, so be it. You may just have finished exploring this one by then.
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