Most interesting interview?

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What does everyone think is the most fascinating or informative interview with BoC? For my money, it's one of their very first- "The Age of Aquarius" by The Cosmic Crofter.

Take this quote for example:

Having always been interested in art in all its apparitions, the two have continually attempted to combine their beliefs, hopes and fears into an all-encompassing sensual experience, primarily in the fields of music, film, writing and more recently web design, "the official Turquoise Hexagon Sun website will up and running by Easter 1998 with a section on BoC as well as 'THS Scripture' buyable in dead tree format, Music70 BoCumentaries and 'Emephant Diagram', the number cruncher", I am assured that all will become clear.


So, is THS Scripture (presumably The Hexagon Sun, or Turquoise Hexagon Sun) a book written by BoC? And what the hell is this "Emephant Diagram, the Number Cruncher" thing? Based on the "I am assured that all will become clear," part, it seems like Crofter himself didn't know either.

Then there were these quotes regarding subliminal messaging. In later interviews, particularly post-Geogaddi, they seemed to downplay the importance of subliminals, whereas in this interview, BoC emphasize their interest in them and specifically mention "triggers," which are associated with psychological programming and mind control theories. They even say that two members of Hexagon Sun are primarily interested in these elements.

In December of 1997, two other members joined the Hexagon Sun bunker, resulting in the acquisition of some "useful technology". Just who these other members remains a secret, as they "are more interested in the psychological capabilities of sounds and images than their aesthetics.

...

In terms of other artistic formats, they are keen to point out that the visual and literary side is by no means a colorful backdrop ... "It's not secondary to the music, it's all the same thing. We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you".

...

To witness a BoC live performance confirms their agenda, "We're not interested in ambient filmmaking, we are interested in triggers, embedding and subliminals ... (during a live performance) we like people to pay attention to the messages on the screens".


I was also fascinated with some of the non-English language TH-era interviews where they directly stated they intended to perform live again if/when they could "make the experience really special."

Anyone else have any favorites or recommendations? I've been trying to go through them all but there are many I haven't gotten to.

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The earlier interviews are inevitably going to be the most interesting and revealing. Reading all their interviews, chronologically, all at once (which you can do very easily here: http://bocpages.org/wiki/Interviews-all - I read them all in a single afternoon recently when I was home sick) you can really see them just graaaaadually closing up over the years. Which of course is just the unavoidable result of increased notoriety, relentless online fan scrutiny, and the dampening of naive enthusiasm that age brings. (And also just the ever-decreasing need to promote yourself after you're established.) The Tomorrow's Harvest interviews, fascinating as they are, are much more restrained and guarded compared to the ones circa late 1990s.

Reading all the interviews at once is also a little unfair, in a way, as you start to pick up on a host of contradictions, inconsistencies, unfulfilled plans, and so on. As someone who isn't famous, I can't imagine what it would be like to have to continue being accountable for things you said 20 years ago. Like there are times when I read things I wrote in 2011 and think "wow who is this person?" I suppose this is probably another reason why they've become more cagey with their words over the years.

In terms of a specific interview, I'm a bit fond of "In An Imaginary Place Out In The Country" from Cookie Scene, 2002 (translated from Japanese) if only for Marcus describing this childhood dream:

I woke up in the middle of the night and rand down the stairs, I looked into the hallway below and saw red transparent organisms there. There was a guy with an ET feeling about him, red or orange light shone onto his body. I was screaming as I was being sucked into him, etc.

which is so eerily similar to a dream I had as a kid, it gave me the chills.

Also in the same interview "Brian Eno" translates as "Brian Lee Residential" for some reason, and I've always wanted to steal that name for a side project . . .

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breadmaker wrote:The earlier interviews are inevitably going to be the most interesting and revealing. Reading all their interviews, chronologically, all at once (which you can do very easily here: http://bocpages.org/wiki/Interviews-all - I read them all in a single afternoon recently when I was home sick) you can really see them just graaaaadually closing up over the years. Which of course is just the unavoidable result of increased notoriety, relentless online fan scrutiny, and the dampening of naive enthusiasm that age brings. (And also just the ever-decreasing need to promote yourself after you're established.) The Tomorrow's Harvest interviews, fascinating as they are, are much more restrained and guarded compared to the ones circa late 1990s.

Reading all the interviews at once is also a little unfair, in a way, as you start to pick up on a host of contradictions, inconsistencies, unfulfilled plans, and so on. As someone who isn't famous, I can't imagine what it would be like to have to continue being accountable for things you said 20 years ago. Like there are times when I read things I wrote in 2011 and think "wow who is this person?" I suppose this is probably another reason why they've become more cagey with their words over the years.

In terms of a specific interview, I'm a bit fond of "In An Imaginary Place Out In The Country" from Cookie Scene, 2002 (translated from Japanese) if only for Marcus describing this childhood dream:

I woke up in the middle of the night and rand down the stairs, I looked into the hallway below and saw red transparent organisms there. There was a guy with an ET feeling about him, red or orange light shone onto his body. I was screaming as I was being sucked into him, etc.

which is so eerily similar to a dream I had as a kid, it gave me the chills.

Also in the same interview "Brian Eno" translates as "Brian Lee Residential" for some reason, and I've always wanted to steal that name for a side project . . .



Imaginary Place out in the Country is also my personal favorite. I can't say for certain that those are the exact words of the Brothers, though. Its a real shame but I did the best job that I possibly could at the time. I had to get hi-res scans of the magazines and put them into a program that recognized Japanese characters to a high degree of accuracy, I put that into Google translate and had to basically, almost from scratch, work with the sometimes unintelligible garbage that came from it and reconstitute it into my personal take on the message that was trying to be conveyed by key words etc and then using filler words to stitch them together into something readable and (I hope) close to the original.

Its a shame because I was making a lot of progress with the interviews and Bocpages editing but I went a bit weird for a while and embarrassed myself on here and kind of felt like I couldn't go back without awkwardness ensuing.

Edit: Thank you for clearing that up! I spent ages searching 'Brian Lee Residential' but with nothing noteworthy or likely coming up and eventually gave up and left it in, assuming it just must have been an obscure reference to a group that only a handful of people are aware of. I can't believe I didn't think that it could have been Brian Eno at the time. Feel free to edit the Wiki.

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Should mention that it isn't the case for the whole interview, though. Some passages were auto-translated quite well and required minimal work, the reference to the Redmoon event being one of them on the flipside there was a reference to ATP in there that was completely unintelligible, and a couple of others that had to be left out because it was too much my own words and not the words of the Brothers IIRC.

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Great suggestion, thanks. I loved the part about Marcus' dreams.

In the same section with "Brian Lee Residential," they are also quoted as saying: "With God Speed we have also listened to a small quantity of their work but by no means all of it and I would like to express the greatest respect for Darrel, also my friend. He is probably one of the nicest guys in the people who are doing electronic music."

Anyone know who the Darrel they're referring to is? There's no one in Godspeed by that name.

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I actually quite enjoy the foreign language interviews, so thanks Valotonin for your work on those. The translation process often renders things more curious & profound than probably was originally intended. Like this passage from "The Last Unexplored Area of Boards of Canada"

When you are a child, you wonder what you wonder, and are then told to accept the world as it is. After a couple of years, like any child, I got back into the mindset of wondering again. Examining the colour spectrum, wondering why things fall in such a way, wondering what the true colour of carrots are etc. I began thinking that perhaps my head was getting fucked up (laughs). If there is no concept of mathematics, one isn't able to see through the perspective of mathematics. Certain senses need to be learned in a way. There is no rule book, there is no such thing as 'x'.

It all sounds like such poetic, arcane wisdom.

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SamuraiDrifter wrote:Great suggestion, thanks. I loved the part about Marcus' dreams.

In the same section with "Brian Lee Residential," they are also quoted as saying: "With God Speed we have also listened to a small quantity of their work but by no means all of it and I would like to express the greatest respect for Darrel, also my friend. He is probably one of the nicest guys in the people who are doing electronic music."

Anyone know who the Darrel they're referring to is? There's no one in Godspeed by that name.


Honestly no idea, the one thing that was difficult above all others was the translation of names as I am guessing a lot of them were done phonetically. Its the interview equivalent of a 4th generation cassette tape and Japanese phrase structuring is almost the polar opposite of western dialects.

It was definitely in relation to Goodspeed, though. Perhaps a phonetic lost-in-translation of Mauro or David

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breadmaker wrote:I actually quite enjoy the foreign language interviews, so thanks Valotonin for your work on those. The translation process often renders things more curious & profound than probably was originally intended. Like this passage from "The Last Unexplored Area of Boards of Canada"

When you are a child, you wonder what you wonder, and are then told to accept the world as it is. After a couple of years, like any child, I got back into the mindset of wondering again. Examining the colour spectrum, wondering why things fall in such a way, wondering what the true colour of carrots are etc. I began thinking that perhaps my head was getting fucked up (laughs). If there is no concept of mathematics, one isn't able to see through the perspective of mathematics. Certain senses need to be learned in a way. There is no rule book, there is no such thing as 'x'.

It all sounds like such poetic, arcane wisdom.


Aw, I'm flattered. I think it has more to do with the words being filtered through English, into Japanese and back into English again, though. Its quite a profound and metaphorical language in comparison to our own and a lot of that writing style came through in the translations.

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John Perl's little jem during and after the session back in the 90s. You hear how perfectly normal genius can sound. And that goes for Peel too.
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Slow down...

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Mexicola wrote:John Perl's little jem during and after the session back in the 90s. You hear how perfectly normal genius can sound. And that goes for Peel too.

Marcus is asked his favorite letter of the alphabet, immediately answers "M" without any hesitation. Hahaha.

"What 'M' is a garden flower whose bright orange petals... yes Sarah?"
"Football."
"That's it!"

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In the same section with "Brian Lee Residential," they are also quoted as saying: "With God Speed we have also listened to a small quantity of their work but by no means all of it and I would like to express the greatest respect for Darrel, also my friend. He is probably one of the nicest guys in the people who are doing electronic music."

Anyone know who the Darrel they're referring to is? There's no one in Godspeed by that name.


Would this be Bola who was also on Skam?

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This whole thing is reminding me of the MK-ULTRA concpiracy.

"It's not secondary to the music, it's all the same thing. We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you"

"In December of 1997, two other members joined the Hexagon Sun bunker, resulting in the acquisition of some "useful technology". Just who these other members remains a secret, as they "are more interested in the psychological capabilities of sounds and images than their aesthetics."

So Boards of Canada is the music equivalent of Polyibius?
this thread is full of shenanigans.

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The early interviews had a lot of myth building. They did a great job with that.

Reminds me of the story Eddie Vedder used to tell journalists when asked where the name Pearl Jam came from. He said he had a grandmother named Pearl who used to make hallucinogenic jam and the name of the band was dedicated to her. It was total bullshit, but a good story.

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Flory wrote:This whole thing is reminding me of the MK-ULTRA concpiracy.

"It's not secondary to the music, it's all the same thing. We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you"

"In December of 1997, two other members joined the Hexagon Sun bunker, resulting in the acquisition of some "useful technology". Just who these other members remains a secret, as they "are more interested in the psychological capabilities of sounds and images than their aesthetics."

So Boards of Canada is the music equivalent of Polyibius?



Yes yes of course, they must being well into that and the Montauk Project... :twisted:

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Josh wrote:The early interviews had a lot of myth building. They did a great job with that.

Reminds me of the story Eddie Vedder used to tell journalists when asked where the name Pearl Jam came from. He said he had a grandmother named Pearl who used to make hallucinogenic jam and the name of the band was dedicated to her. It was total bullshit, but a good story.

I don't know what to think of the idea that those early interviews were "myth building." I mean, making stuff up in interviews to build a public image seems pretty contradictory with the fact that they've generally shunned attention and seem to make music mostly for themselves.

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Torn n Frayed wrote:
Flory wrote:This whole thing is reminding me of the MK-ULTRA concpiracy.

"It's not secondary to the music, it's all the same thing. We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you"

"In December of 1997, two other members joined the Hexagon Sun bunker, resulting in the acquisition of some "useful technology". Just who these other members remains a secret, as they "are more interested in the psychological capabilities of sounds and images than their aesthetics."

So Boards of Canada is the music equivalent of Polyibius?



Yes yes of course, they must being well into that and the Montauk Project... :twisted:

" We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you" uh what is so damaging about the live videos? This video which is the only live version of a song and live video to surface together from the events
phpBB [media]
this thread is full of shenanigans.

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Flory wrote:
Torn n Frayed wrote:
Flory wrote:This whole thing is reminding me of the MK-ULTRA concpiracy.

"It's not secondary to the music, it's all the same thing. We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you"

"In December of 1997, two other members joined the Hexagon Sun bunker, resulting in the acquisition of some "useful technology". Just who these other members remains a secret, as they "are more interested in the psychological capabilities of sounds and images than their aesthetics."

So Boards of Canada is the music equivalent of Polyibius?



Yes yes of course, they must being well into that and the Montauk Project... :twisted:

" We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you" uh what is so damaging about the live videos? This video which is the only live version of a song and live video to surface together from the events
phpBB [media]


This doesn't seem likely based on the way it was phrased, but maybe some of their more colorful videos had rapidly-changing imagery or flashing lights that could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy? I mean they're definitely into trippy cinematography based on that video and the TCH promo video.

Could also contain those "subliminal messages" they like to mention in interviews. Maybe everyone at the live shows got hypnotized into deleting any footage they took >:)

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Yes yes of course, they must being well into that and the Montauk Project... :twisted:[/quote]
" We use video on stage, but it's not for wallpaper, it's got things in it which could damage you" uh what is so damaging about the live videos? This video which is the only live version of a song and live video to surface together from the events
phpBB [media]
[/quote]

This doesn't seem likely based on the way it was phrased, but maybe some of their more colorful videos had rapidly-changing imagery or flashing lights that could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy? I mean they're definitely into trippy cinematography based on that video and the TCH promo video.

Could also contain those "subliminal messages" they like to mention in interviews. Maybe everyone at the live shows got hypnotized into deleting any footage they took >:)[/quote]
That would not explain why there exist warp 1999 live photos of them live. :wink:
this thread is full of shenanigans.

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This doesn't seem likely based on the way it was phrased, but maybe some of their more colorful videos had rapidly-changing imagery or flashing lights that could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy? I mean they're definitely into trippy cinematography based on that video and the TCH promo video.

Could also contain those "subliminal messages" they like to mention in interviews. Maybe everyone at the live shows got hypnotized into deleting any footage they took >:)

That would not explain why there exist warp 1999 live photos of them live. :wink:
this thread is full of shenanigans.

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No one was carrying cameras around in their pockets in 1999, if you had a camera, they knew it and it wasn't going to be allowed in. No reason to overthink it.

If those 3 shows took place in 2016-2018 instead of 1999-2001, you would have 10 competing fan recordings and all sorts of photos. Then again, they'd probably just lock up everyones' cell phones.

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