[Interview] Volkskrant (July 17th, 2013)

[mc10101]

It simply are not translating very suitable, is not it

[Guido]

VK: There is an eight year span between your last album and Tomorrow's Harvest. When did you start working on it and what was the idea behind it?

Michael: "We began by making sketches, right after the release of the Trans Canada Highway EP in 2006. We then lived in the US for a couple of years and really began working on it two years ago. In the meantime we spent time raising our children, but we didn't do any work outside of Boards Of Canada."
"We're both very interested in politics and other global affairs. Since 2005 we wanted to do something with the fact of overpopulation in the world and also the darker side that our society is progressively sliding into.

VK: Your music has always been influenced by movie soundtracks from the seventies and eighties. Have there been any new influences?"

Michael: "I try to shut myself off from contemporary music when I'm working on a new album, but for this record we wanted to create a specific color palette for which we kept returning to soundtracks of the early eighties. Movies by David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, but we also relied on science fiction, krautrock and progrock from the seventies."
Marcus: "Actually we barely listen to other electronic music for fun"

VK: The atmosphere on the new record is darker than before. A lot of reviews use the word post-apocalyptic. Do you agree with that?

Michael: "We try to keep everything ambiguous, but the themes are indeed darker. These simply aren't pretty times, we want to resonate that. But we always try to alleviate the dark sides and conversely give a lighter song a dark edge. We try to let all our music be both light and dark. That augments the expressiveness."

VK: The track Collapse halfway on the album seems to be a turning point. The songs that come afterward seem to be more expressly colored and less vague.

Marcus: "That's right. The track intentionally marks a turning point. You could also consider it to be a mirroring moment. The second to last track has a similar melody as the second track, for example. The second part we would like to classify as less human."
Michael: "The last couple of tracks thematically refer to a kind of resurrection. Not that there is a happy ending, on the contrary. We maintain a pessimistic view of the world. Mankind messes up, but there can still be room for hope."

VK: Right after the release of the album there was the mass surveillance issue around Edward Snowden. It's as if you anticipated on such events on Tomorrow's Harvest.

Marcus: "The reaction on the Snowden case surprised us. The American government built the internet and the networks themselves, and if you're aware that telephone calls were monitored by default before the inception of the Internet, why wouldn't that same government not do the same with affairs and data that are published through the internet?"

VK: In 2011 Solange Knowles recorded a vocal version of your song, what was your involvement in this?

Michael: "Solange approached our record label and we gave her our permission. I realize that this was considered to be unusual: someone from the R&B scene who sings over a Boards Of Canada track, but we liked what she did. To me it sounds like an unknown theme(song) from a James Bond movie or something like that."

VK: Did you intentionally wanted to turn away from the more sentimental side of your work, such as on your EP In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country from 2000?

Michael: "We still make a lot of those melodic tracks, but didn't fit as well on those albums. Maybe another time."

Marcus: "It still interests us, composing strong melodies. In fact, I think we're one of the few bands in electronic music who emphasizes the melody so strongly. But on the new record we are rather using the old idea of soundtracks. Small fragments, and melodies that are cut off abruptly."

VK: In the past you occasionally performed live, but you haven't done this for years. Is there a possibility that Boards Of Canada will be on stage again?

Michael: "We want to perform live again if we can make it into something really special. We've already started working on this a little and we hope that this will soon result in something special."

[Basefree]

Translated by me. Can't help it if you don't like it. Go bug Fredd-E if you want Fredd-E.

Stellar translation. Thank you Guido!

[mc10101]

Thank you Guido for all your hard work

Michael: "We began by making sketches, right after the release of the Trans Canada Highway EP in 2006. We then lived in the US for a couple of years and really began working on it two years ago. In the meantime we spent time raising our children, but we didn't do any work outside of Boards Of Canada."

What the hell are they living on then??? Surely they don't sell enough records to sustain them both for 7 years?? I suppose licensing to tv etc brings in a bit more, but I reckon the wives must be doing late shifts down the bingo

[zeitgeist]

thanks guido, although i wish i had clicked the second page of this thread first, as i just struggled through the entire google version. shit. anyway, kinda a "meh" interview--same questions as all the others

[paul]

Thank you Guido for all your hard work

Michael: "We began by making sketches, right after the release of the Trans Canada Highway EP in 2006. We then lived in the US for a couple of years and really began working on it two years ago. In the meantime we spent time raising our children, but we didn't do any work outside of Boards Of Canada."

What the hell are they living on then??? Surely they don't sell enough records to sustain them both for 7 years?? I suppose licensing to tv etc brings in a bit more, but I reckon the wives must be doing late shifts down the bingo

not that its any of my business, i too have wondered if they are in the enviable position of being better off than most. as much as i love travel, its almost always for work. when i hear they up and leave (but not as the kids of a career soldier - as adults) to "live" here and there for a spell (US, NZ, etc.), i wonder if the record sales afford them this possibility or? if that is so, thats fantastic and well deserved. part of me wonders though if its something else. i have a pal who has a trust fund and pretty much spends all his days enjoying hobby. when he breaks a brand new $500 surf board in half he just buys another, then its off to Australia for some adventure and then over to NY for a party. he's a good lad and i'm happy for him - but i often think what a blast it must be to be able to do that.

no matter, such flux has to offer up some interesting experiences + inspiration = new music.

[ryetronics]

Thanks for the translation!

So this basically confirms they lived in the US, which I have had a hunch about ever since the Lake Delores listening party. If you remember, near the water park people found a Skyline Drive in Theater, and in the water park itself a small silo with a Coke sign on it that you can stand under. The similarities between these locations and the fact that they're linked by a highway made me think the brothers had been to the location and it had inspired them for the track names on Trans Canada Highway.

One of the Warp officials at the listening party told a twoismer that the brothers had never been to area, which is now proven to be incorrect.

[d e n]

Thank you Guido for all your hard work

Michael: "We began by making sketches, right after the release of the Trans Canada Highway EP in 2006. We then lived in the US for a couple of years and really began working on it two years ago. In the meantime we spent time raising our children, but we didn't do any work outside of Boards Of Canada."

What the hell are they living on then??? Surely they don't sell enough records to sustain them both for 7 years?? I suppose licensing to tv etc brings in a bit more, but I reckon the wives must be doing late shifts down the bingo

not that its any of my business, i too have wondered if they are in the enviable position of being better off than most. as much as i love travel, its almost always for work. when i hear they up and leave (but not as the kids of a career soldier - as adults) to "live" here and there for a spell (US, NZ, etc.), i wonder if the record sales afford them this possibility or? if that is so, thats fantastic and well deserved. part of me wonders though if its something else. i have a pal who has a trust fund and pretty much spends all his days enjoying hobby. when he breaks a brand new $500 surf board in half he just buys another, then its off to Australia for some adventure and then over to NY for a party. he's a good lad and i'm happy for him - but i often think what a blast it must be to be able to do that.

no matter, such flux has to offer up some interesting experiences + inspiration = new music.

i'd guess they aren't the kind of people who use their money on a lot of unnecessary material things and thus are just good at using money for what's important to them.



and fook yah!! so hyped that they acknowledged Solange's vocals on Left Side Drive. that track is awesome.

[thepastinsidepressant]

One of the Warp officials at the listening party told a twoismer that the brothers had never been to area, which is now proven to be incorrect.

ah right, i thought they said they'd never even been to the US.

its not easy to get by on their royalties alone, maybe now as they're getting more exposure. i guess like many people, some have old friends, even family living in US and other places. doesnt have to cost much to get there. Visas are another issue.

must be difficult though as they need grounding in one place so the kids can get to school. maybe they teach them themselves! i wouldnt be surprised.

[seanandcandy]

One of the Warp officials at the listening party told a twoismer that the brothers had never been to area, which is now proven to be incorrect.

they have probably never been "to the area"
just because they lived in the US for a while doesn't mean they've been in southern california

[paul]

One of the Warp officials at the listening party told a twoismer that the brothers had never been to area, which is now proven to be incorrect.

they have probably never been "to the area"
just because they lived in the US for a while doesn't mean they've been in southern california

Interesting. I must have missed that bit - the warp rep told me they were tasked with picking out a suitable site and it was that simple. But if they were here I would gander a trip to at least somewhere in the desert of this pretty cool state would have been in order. Next to Moab or something similar the desert here is pretty unreal.

[d e n]

yo paul I was camping in Moab/Canyon Lands/Arches two summers ago and it was intense. that is the land of ego-loss... really puts you in your place.

[bkillsb]

it's fantastic. i live in LA about an hour or two from the desert. i still fantasize they were in the airstream.

[paul]

yo paul I was camping in Moab/Canyon Lands/Arches two summers ago and it was intense. that is the land of ego-loss... really puts you in your place.

it is like a different planet eh? i did an adventure race out there (2006) in the exact places you list. 8 days and nights running through the desert, slot canyons, rappelling the cliffs and paddling the river. prolonged sleep-deprivation in the desert afforded me the most intense hallucinations of my life (i don't have to tell you what was playing in my earbuds). i feel very lucky to have experienced it all in such magnificent desolation. a life-changing experience!

[ryetronics]

One of the Warp officials at the listening party told a twoismer that the brothers had never been to area, which is now proven to be incorrect.

they have probably never been "to the area"
just because they lived in the US for a while doesn't mean they've been in southern california

Maybe so the but the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong that they have been to that area.

[Sebastian Palomar]

Thank you. I recently joined, but this is such a great piece of work.