Sunday, June 14, 2009

880. Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right to Children (1998)
















Track Listing

1. Wildlife Analysis
2. An Eagle In Your Mind
3. The Color Of The Fire
4. Telephasic Workshop
5. Triangles & Rhombuses
6. Sixtyten
7. Turquoise Hexagon Sun
8. Kaini Industries
9. Bocuma
10. Roygbiv
11. Rue The Whirl
12. Aquarius
13. Olson
14. Pete Standing Alone
15. Smokes Quantity
16. Open The Light
17. One Very Important Thought

Review

Boards of Canada bring us a moody ambient album, this is the kind of stuff people will often call IDM (intelligent dance music), although I hate that term, as there is no SDM and it always makes fans of slightly less dance oriented electronic music sound like pillocks.

That being said, the album is pretty interesting in terms of sound, a bit like Eno crossed with Aphex but never really reaching the apex of quality of any of those two. The influences are quite clear,however, but they never fall into imitation, so that is good.

In spite of the fact that the album is quite interesting it never really goes much further than that. It has a hard time engaging the listener in the music, when it does, however, it can be quite rewarding, those moments are quite few and far between, unfortunately. Still, an interesting listen.

Track Highlights

1. Turquoise Hexagon Sun
2. The Color of the Fire
3. Roygbiv
4. Aquarius

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was published by Warp Records and released on 20 April 1998 in Europe and 20 August in the United States. The album was produced at the Hexagon Sun, the duo's personal recording studio.

Turquoise Hexagon Sun:

2 comments:

Rod McBan said...

Oh thank god - finally someone who doesn't consider this the pinnacle of Western Art in the last thirty years. They have a unique sound, but others have put it to better use.

Lachlan Willis said...

Others have put it to better use? I cant think of any other artist who sounds like Boards of Canada except Ulrich Schnauss, and he pales in comparison to BoC.

Sure it may not be 'the pinnacle of western art' but it sure is one of the most unique electronic albums, and is one of the few examples of electronic music that has a very emotional quality to it, rather than mindless beats and synths. In my opinion it deserved more than 8, but I'm not here to change your mind, just giving a different perspective.