Scottish brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin have been recording music under the moniker Boards of Canada for over twenty years. In that time they’ve released three landmark albums on Warp Records, numerous EP’s and a few hard-to-find private releases, which all together comprise one of the strongest back catalogs in electronic music.
The hype for the band’s upcoming album, Tomorrow’s Harvest, began on Record Store Day 2013, when a fan purchased a mysterious 12-inch at a New York record store. The plain brown packaging bore no identifying artwork aside from “Boards of Canada —— / —— / ——/ XXXXXX / —— / ——” in small black letters, and the audio on the vinyl only consisted of static, a little music, and a voice reciting a few numbers.
The numbers turned out to be part of an elaborate set of codes, which had been hidden amongst various radio broadcasts, television ads, music videos, website source codes, etc., and when entered together into the new Boards of Canada website, allowed access to a video that confirms the album’s release.
“Reach for the Dead” is the first track to be released from Tomorrow’s Harvest, and it is unmistakably BoC; a haunting IDM drone track that culminates in a slow-building, cinematic crescendo.
Let it take you somewhere far away, to a place where things don’t seem so important.