GENERAL NEW RELEASE SPECULATION TOPIC

[demo]

'Strong emotional melodies'. That pretty much sums up the essence of what Boards of Canada is about. After various hard-to-get releases on cassettes, Skam Records (and it's enigmatic offshoot Mask) the Scottish duo has just released their debut album Music Has The Right To Children on Warp Records. The first of five on the Sheffield label!

Five albums. That might explain why Mike Sanderson and Marcus Eoin are extremely busy in their Hexagon Studio and reject most interview requests. So many tracks to finish, so little time. But Forcefield managed to enter the bunker which hosts the Hexagon Studio. Via E-mail. Here is what they said.

Tasty interview quote. Possibly pertinent to today.

These kinds of quotes make it sound like they have an immense amount of unreleased music, it almost sounds like they only release like 2% of all the music they make, does anyone else get this impression or is it just me?

[Negamuse]

Don't a lot of musicians, really? I mean, especially if you're at all of mind to keep copies of all your sketches and jams and whatnot it's really easy to end up with a hard drive or tape box full of bits and pieces that just didn't make the cut. Most bands these would be useless, but when you think about how BoC cut and reuse things suddenly ALL of it is potentially useful so I can totally buy they have an archive of unheard.... material.

I mean it's probably not literally "albums of finished tracks", and an off-hand interview blag about "oh yeah we're sitting on mountains of stuff", was probably never meant to be taken as written in stone, you know?

[mthrndr]

Don't a lot of musicians, really? I mean, especially if you're at all of mind to keep copies of all your sketches and jams and whatnot it's really easy to end up with a hard drive or tape box full of bits and pieces that just didn't make the cut. Most bands these would be useless, but when you think about how BoC cut and reuse things suddenly ALL of it is potentially useful so I can totally buy they have an archive of unheard.... material.

I mean it's probably not literally "albums of finished tracks", and an off-hand interview blag about "oh yeah we're sitting on mountains of stuff", was probably never meant to be taken as written in stone, you know?

They have stated in interviews that they completed over 400 tracks between Geogaddi and TCH...they also said that they made Geogaddi by picking from something like 70 or 90 completed tracks. And that's not to mention the enormous amount of unreleased material from before MHTRTC - now those tracks might be more sketches and more unrefined than later stuff. They also mentioned that it took them ages to catalog everything.

I think, like Richard James, they do have multiple albums' worth of unreleased tracks. He just happened to dump many of them on soundcloud. I don't think BoC will ever do that though.

[SamuraiDrifter]

Most bands have a huge back catalog I think. Hell, even my tiny local band has literally 100+ hours of unreleased music, because we spend a couple of hours every week jamming and we record all of our sessions.

[Echelon]

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

BOC themselves have said that they were obsessed with making "perfect albums" so I feel that we got the best of the best. But much like Ween, the BOC outtakes will still be worth hearing if they ever decide to release them for us diehards.

(Or I could be totally wrong and BOC are actually Bob Dylan and have stuff like Blind Willie McTell that they deliberately leave off their albums)

[mthrndr]

(Or I could be totally wrong and BOC are actually Bob Dylan and have stuff like Blind Willie McTell that they deliberately leave off their albums)

I mean, it's my opinion that we already know this to be true. All one has to do is listen to the three live performances that we were never supposed to hear, if we weren't in attendance. Multiple unreleased album-worthy tracks only ever played ONCE, some of which rival their very best work. Hell, Machinedrum (fantastic producer in his own right) loved Warp 10 track 7 so much he remade it.

While I may doubt the existence of the actual supposed pre-twoism albums, I fully believe they are sitting on albums' worth of top tier material. Shit, there are plenty of album-worthy tracks on OT1, 2, and especially R35tt. I think we just take for granted that we, the average fans, weren't "meant" to hear these. They just aren't driven by releasing their work to the public, much to my chagrin!

[Jango9]

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

BOC themselves have said that they were obsessed with making "perfect albums" so I feel that we got the best of the best. But much like Ween, the BOC outtakes will still be worth hearing if they ever decide to release them for us diehards.

Funny you should mention Ween, they're the reason why I believe the pre-twoism albums do indeed exist. Ween has an entire sort of secondary discography of demo tapes that almost eclipses their actual studio discography in terms of scale (even having five full limited-release albums before their "proper" debut just like BoC lmao) and it really runs the gamut in terms of quality. You go from super nice tracks that could've totally been on an album like this:

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To whatever the fuck this is:

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I can totally believe that BoC's unreleased stuff also runs a similar gamut, though I wouldn't mind hearing their equivalent to No Cheese For The Candyman sometime hahaha

[Echelon]

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

BOC themselves have said that they were obsessed with making "perfect albums" so I feel that we got the best of the best. But much like Ween, the BOC outtakes will still be worth hearing if they ever decide to release them for us diehards.

Funny you should mention Ween, they're the reason why I believe the pre-twoism albums do indeed exist. Ween has an entire sort of secondary discography of demo tapes that almost eclipses their actual studio discography in terms of scale (even having five full limited-release albums before their "proper" debut just like BoC lmao) and it really runs the gamut in terms of quality. You go from super nice tracks that could've totally been on an album like this:

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To whatever the fuck this is:

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I can totally believe that BoC's unreleased stuff also runs a similar gamut, though I wouldn't mind hearing their equivalent to No Cheese For The Candyman sometime hahaha

One of their early tapes, Axis Bold As Boognish, is an Acid Memories level title indeed. But quite unlike BOC, we've got it and I think it mostly sounds like two teenage friends messing around together. It's endearing but nowhere on the level of their "mature" output.

That said, all the outtakes from their actual career are quite excellent. I still think they made the right choices for their albums in most cases, but I do think their Shinola outtakes compilation is on the level of their best stuff. I'm sure if BOC have their own Shinola with handpicked tracks from each era (perhaps re-recorded like Shinola was) it will make a worthy addition to their canon that even perfectionists like themselves would accept.

[SamuraiDrifter]

I fucking love Ween's unreleased demos, my favorite is "I Smoke Some Grass And Get Really, Really High" which is just them jamming and repeating that over and over for like 10 minutes.

[Mikey]

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

BOC themselves have said that they were obsessed with making "perfect albums" so I feel that we got the best of the best. But much like Ween, the BOC outtakes will still be worth hearing if they ever decide to release them for us diehards.

(Or I could be totally wrong and BOC are actually Bob Dylan and have stuff like Blind Willie McTell that they deliberately leave off their albums)

Always assumed the Nevermen remix was a Tomorrow's Harvest track that didn't make the cut. https://youtu.be/b0sNLKMJAoQ

[Jango9]

One of their early tapes, Axis Bold As Boognish, is an Acid Memories level title indeed. But quite unlike BOC, we've got it and I think it mostly sounds like two teenage friends messing around together. It's endearing but nowhere on the level of their "mature" output.

That said, all the outtakes from their actual career are quite excellent. I still think they made the right choices for their albums in most cases, but I do think their Shinola outtakes compilation is on the level of their best stuff. I'm sure if BOC have their own Shinola with handpicked tracks from each era (perhaps re-recorded like Shinola was) it will make a worthy addition to their canon that even perfectionists like themselves would accept.

Yeah, the concept mdg described for the BoC outtake compilation all those years ago before disappearing was basically BoC's own Shinola. I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't be down for that, though if there really is as much stuff to sift through as they've implied then I can see how they'd run into trouble selecting the absolute cream of the crop lmao

Going back to Ween for a moment, there's a tape of theirs called the Scraping The Palm For Guava Tape that was thought to not exist for many many years until someone just posted it on Youtube about four years ago. They recorded it when they were around 18-19, which is about the same age as BoC would've been when they recorded Acid Memories. It was similarly only given to friends and family. It's even got a bit of that "guitars meet electronics" spirit mentioned in that old magazine (though mostly in the form of drum machines and crazy voice effects). Mark my words, if we ever end up actually hearing Acid Memories it's gonna sound at least a little bit like this:

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There's also a much more synth-heavy project from a teenage Gene Ween that goes by the name Synthetic Socks, which is another album I've used to fill the void left by the infamous five:

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Tree, Sea Of Mellchis, and Investigating Tornadoes in particular sound like pages directly out of the early BoC playbook

[Sherbet Head]

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

I wouldn't be so sure. Many artists have b-sides/outtakes as good as (often better than) the album tracks. Hell I'm probably gonna get flak for this but, without hesitation, there are some tracks from MHTRTC that I'd have swapped for Boc Maxima cuts.

[Echelon]

Going back to Ween for a moment, there's a tape of theirs called the Scraping The Palm For Guava Tape that was thought to not exist for many many years until someone just posted it on Youtube about four years ago. They recorded it when they were around 18-19, which is about the same age as BoC would've been when they recorded Acid Memories. It was similarly only given to friends and family. It's even got a bit of that "guitars meet electronics" spirit mentioned in that old magazine (though mostly in the form of drum machines and crazy voice effects). Mark my words, if we ever end up actually hearing Acid Memories it's gonna sound at least a little bit like this:

I can definitely hear that. I've always reckoned that one acoustic track towards the end of R35TT with the primitive as hell (in a good way) sounding drum machine was from Acid Memories. I love how the acoustics and the keyboards rise out of that crappy drum machine like the sun greeting the day.

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

I wouldn't be so sure. Many artists have b-sides/outtakes as good as (often better than) the album tracks. Hell I'm probably gonna get flak for this but, without hesitation, there are some tracks from MHTRTC that I'd have swapped for Boc Maxima cuts.

I think I'm simply trying to convince myself their unreleased stuff isn't so good so I won't crave it haha I won't name names but I'll gladly swap out some tracks on Music for Red Moss and White Water!

[NorthSaturnian]

I think I'm simply trying to convince myself their unreleased stuff isn't so good so I won't crave it haha I won't name names but I'll gladly swap out some tracks on Music for Red Moss and White Water!

I'd remove Kaini Industries and Smokes Quantity if it meant having Red Moss in high quality

[fefor]

I would sometimes tell myself the same thing but I love the entirety of old tunes, r35tt, etc, so its impossible for me to imagine not liking them.

[ColinWallis]

the Boards of Canada Youtube channel subscribers is almost at 66.6K

lol

[Gazebo4]

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

I wouldn't be so sure. Many artists have b-sides/outtakes as good as (often better than) the album tracks. Hell I'm probably gonna get flak for this but, without hesitation, there are some tracks from MHTRTC that I'd have swapped for Boc Maxima cuts.

Right. This immediately made me think of Aphex Twin's Syro. As much as I love that album, imo that Japan bonus track titled Marchromt30a Edit 2b 96 is by far the best track of the whole thing, especially towards the ending, that part still gets me every time I listen to it!

It's quite a bold move imo, as if someone is casually throwing around their highest quality stuff, being easy to miss for most people and all.

[Echelon]

I'm sure that any BOC outtakes we may hear in the future that were left off of the main albums will be good, but inferior to the album tracks.

I came to this conclusion hearing an album's worth of unreleased material from Ween from their Quebec era. The same genius talent is there, but the Ceasar demos are all inferior to what made it on the album. They sound like variations on the best stuff.

I wouldn't be so sure. Many artists have b-sides/outtakes as good as (often better than) the album tracks. Hell I'm probably gonna get flak for this but, without hesitation, there are some tracks from MHTRTC that I'd have swapped for Boc Maxima cuts.

Right. This immediately made me think of Aphex Twin's Syro. As much as I love that album, imo that Japan bonus track titled Marchromt30a Edit 2b 96 is by far the best track of the whole thing, especially towards the ending, that part still gets me every time I listen to it!

It's quite a bold move imo, as if someone is casually throwing around their highest quality stuff, being easy to miss for most people and all.

I'm sad Tomorrow's Harvest never had a japanese bonus track. Especially since I'm quite fond of the ones from Headphase and Geogaddi. Unlike a lot of warp artists, (Flying Lotus is the biggest offender) BOC did not simply throw on some warm-up demo as for their bonus tracks. It could have even been the one they used for that award show in 2014.

[NorthSaturnian]

the Boards of Canada Youtube channel subscribers is almost at 66.6K

lol

And their total views count was at 6,666,666 a while ago
It's a sign

[Davism]

Is their YT channel following 2 new channels too? I thought I remembered that they only followed Hell Interface.