BOC takes me back to the time where I first heard them, winter of 2003.
The summer of '03 had been, hands down, the greatest time of my life. I was making lots of new friends, playing the drums, hanging out in fields and parks, in the hills, at the beach in front of campfires, just having good old fashioned fun. Actually getting out of the house and doing things instead of being anti-social, as was often the case... not to mention the experiences with mind bending hallucinogens...
I started getting into electronic music more and more. Particularly the darker, creepier stuff. Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works series was often played that summer. As well as Autechre, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, and a couple choice .mods from the now dead trax scene.
I have always clung to the darker, more bizarre side of music. I think this is because some of my earliest
memories are of the music my dad used to listen to when I was very young. I particularly remember the backwards guitar sounds from Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced. Also, one time, my dad was listening to Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles, and the tape player started eating the tape! It started slowing down, then speeding up, then getting insanely warbly! It was absolutely nightmarish to a 4 or 5 year old child such as myself at the time.
Anyway, getting back to my story. Once fall of '03 rolled around, things started to slow down a bit. We all started getting jobs and a few of us parted ways. By winter, I found myself at home a bit more. I crammed the social voids with more music. One night, I was looking around on CDNow for Aphex Twin, when I saw the "Customers who purchased this also bought..." section... where I saw the name Boards Of Canada. I clicked on it, and saw the Twoism EP. The first thing I ever heard by them was Iced Cooly. I remember it very well. I almost wet myself it was so perfect. It was the most garbled up, out of tune, destroyed, warbly, and unsettling thing I had ever heard... and I ate up every second of it! Seriously, this music was perfect. It was everything I ever wanted to hear in music. By the next day, I had downloaded all their official albums (and of course bought them a little later)
At first, and for a long time... well into 2004, BOC took me happily back to times where I was snowed in over at my friends place and I stayed in the guest bedroom with no windows. I would lay there in the dark and just let it all go while listening to BOC. Then, they became the soundtrack to that awesome summer. Then, they started taking me to places and times that I cannot place... that I'm not sure even exist. There is a very heavy nostalgic feeling to it. I can feel the late 70's early 80's vibe... even though I was most certainly not there at the time. I love it so much.
One of my most recent, awesome BOC experiences was during an 8 hour long car ride just last summer from Spokane Washington down to Salem Oregon. I was in the backseat just riding along with BOC in the headphones (as well as Christ) looking at all the killer scenery. It was absolutely lovely. This was right around the time when The Campfire Headphase track names had been announced. In fact, it was just days before they put Oscar See Through Red Eye on Bleep... by the way. I love the that album's name. When I first saw "The Campfire Headphase" I thought to myself, "How fitting." It reminded me even more of that killer summer in '03.
Sorry to drag on so long... I just wanted to get all that out in the open!
