Why I hope we never hear BoC's old albums

[demo]

As we know, there are albums from BoC that have not been released to the general public, fans have been wanting to hear these albums and lucky for them, 4 of these releases leaked online

BoC Maxima
Old Tunes Vol. 1
Old Tunes Vol. 2
Random 35 Tracks Tape

There are 5 other albums that we know of that fans are hoping we one day hear.

Catalog 3
Acid Memories
Closes Vol. 1
Play By Numbers
Hooper Bay

I also used to hope to hear these albums and part of me always will. However, yesterday I found a quote from Sean from autechre when he was doing his mixlr sessions.







It's these last two comments that i have been focusing on.




Personally, I think we will never hear those old albums. Boards of Canada handed those albums out to people they TRUST. When Old Tunes 1 and 2 leaked they cut a bunch of people off and "went weird" according to Sean from autechre.

So... if one of their old albums did leak, there is a chance they could cut off even more people and go even more into hiding, which I wouldn't want. Knowing this, I have honestly been slightly more understanding and accepting of the fact that those albums have not leaked and part of me hopes they never do.

Anyway, this is just some food for thought, I figured this train of thought was worth posting about.

[fujee]

Trust is everything. They'll release it one day, if they want to. If not, that's fine and you just have to hope those in possession of unreleased material respect their wishes. They clearly care about how their work is curated and packaged to the public. The only reason someone would want to mess with that is for a small piece of notoriety.

[Jango9]

Yeah, I think it was more the fact that someone just put those albums out on the internet without their permission. Maybe I'm a fool for this, but I'm still holding out hope that one day there'll be some kind of officially sanctioned release of at least some of the songs from those albums.

[drillkicker]

It's pretty nasty to cut people off for something like that. Trying to keep something a secret while also sharing it isn't going to work. I don't get the point in trying to keep music secret, anyway. The point of music is that it's vibrating in the air to be heard by everyone around.

Regardless, I don't listen to BoC anymore so I don't care either way. If they release old stuff I might give it a listen but it's not something I'm waiting for. There's plenty of better music out there that's available to everyone.

[happy_cycling]

I'm torn about this, like on one hand I'd love to hear the unreleased stuff because more BoC and it would be very cool to hear some of their earliest stuff... On the other hand, I think that the mystery of how those albums sound and the vagueness of their early discography is part of what makes them so intriguing. BoC is one of my favorite bands of all time because of the mystique that surrounds them. The speculation and mystery is why I joined Twoism.

There has been endless speculation and lore surrounding those albums for 20+ years that they've become almost mythical in the music world. Like the craziness of the Old Tunes saga is a good example of how nuts things would get if something like Acid Memories was found. Plus, as much as I would love to hear it, it would most likely be against the wishes of the brothers; something about that doesn't sit right with me.

If BoC decided to release these albums in some sort of Legacy set, I'd be ecstatic to say the least, but at the same time they would lose that mythical unicorn style quality that has made them so sought after.

[Geogandhi]

I'd never share my first efforts, I doubt many people would be happy showing the world their old scrapbook, so why would they? (Yes, aphex did, fair enough, that's him) They are maybe embarrassed about them? Even though everyone would lap them up, Integrity and preservation of their ethos and image is important to them. So yeah, i'm not bothered about hearing them and don't see them ever coming to light. We have probably heard most of them anyway on the old tunes compilations even if they might be earlier versions, edits, whatever.

[tonx]

I’ll chime in with my usual points on this topic:

— The early albums weren’t “released to the general public” because there was no general public, no market for DIY tapes from unknown artists. They made and distributed as many as they could find homes for, which was few. They’re already released as legitimately as they need to be and we should be on the lookout for them or encourage anyone holding them to share. I don’t think they need a box set or to appear on Spotify or have all theIr samples cleared or any of that shit.

— At the time of the Old Tunes 1&2 and R35TT uploads it was a very different era in the world of music and the internet and artist’s attitudes toward unauthorized distribution. Everyone was wrestling with this. Also, BoC had been deeply working on some magnum opus level material that they would clearly not want to see under-shadowed by rudimentary early works. I can understand they’d be but hurt if their confidantes and colleagues were dumping that shit on Limewire in that era.

— I think we’re now at a level in critical appreciation of and canonization of BoC as unrivaled titans of their craft and artistry that their early recordings would no longer potentially detract from their standing. There’s a unique sensibility to be found in even their most primitive or out-of-genre works that resonates with their newer output in ways that might not have made sense in a pre Geogaddi/CH/TH world. Even their early works defy easy imitation. I’d hope that they’d throw the fans a bone (even though this small crazy minority of us fans that make noise online probably frightens/repulses them) and just toss the recordings up for everyone’s amusement, or mail a tape to NTS.

[Echelon]

This stuff has the reputation of the Beach Boys' Smile in IDM music, and I'm actually kind of curious if they did that on purpose. It's such a clever marketing scheme to come up with some legendary lost tapes that everyone wants but no one has.

If they ever decide to release the stuff, you know that the whole IDM community is going to lose its collective mind.

[demo]

This stuff has the reputation of the Beach Boys' Smile in IDM music, and I'm actually kind of curious if they did that on purpose. It's such a clever marketing scheme to come up with some legendary lost tapes that everyone wants but no one has.

If they ever decide to release the stuff, you know that the whole IDM community is going to lose its collective mind.

Honestly, I truly don't believe fans when they say "They don't want to release their old music because they think it's shit." It's a logical conclusion I guess, but I feel like there is more to it than that. They're allowed to get annoyed and cut people off if they want, especially if they (maybe) wanted to re-release those albums or tracks at a later date.

I tend to notice that a lot of old tracks are reworked and released on later albums of theirs. So there is also the possibility that material from any of the unreleased albums ended up getting reworked into material for their main albums, OR possibly planned to be reworked for future albums.

[Geogandhi]

Of course, we'd all love to hear them, I just don't see them wanting them to be out there. Could be wrong though.

[Twoist]

The snippets on their old website and on EHX were so tantalising. I must have listened to that single 25 second clip of Duffy a thousand times, and to this day I'm haunted by it.. but I've come around to believe that if Acid Memories never sees the light of day then hey, fine. Some things live best when remaining in the half-light.

[mechanismj]

The snippets on their old website and on EHX were so tantalising. I must have listened to that single 25 second clip of Duffy a thousand times, and to this day I'm haunted by it.. but I've come around to believe that if Acid Memories never sees the light of day then hey, fine. Some things live best when remaining in the half-light.

Circle is one my favorite BoC tracks. I would LOVE to hear the whole thing someday.

[happy_cycling]

The snippets on their old website and on EHX were so tantalising. I must have listened to that single 25 second clip of Duffy a thousand times, and to this day I'm haunted by it.. but I've come around to believe that if Acid Memories never sees the light of day then hey, fine. Some things live best when remaining in the half-light.

Circle is one my favorite BoC tracks. I would LOVE to hear the whole thing someday.

Circle messes me up dude. What a perfectly eerie track, like I want more music from BoC in that vein for sure.

[synchrodub]

Good info here. BoC always have the sweetest drums. Maybe they take live kicks and play with the octaves then bus. They probably use tape machines and after recording back to the daw, add envelope, cuts and eq.

[synchrodub]

It's pretty nasty to cut people off for something like that. Trying to keep something a secret while also sharing it isn't going to work. I don't get the point in trying to keep music secret, anyway. The point of music is that it's vibrating in the air to be heard by everyone around.

Regardless, I don't listen to BoC anymore so I don't care either way. If they release old stuff I might give it a listen but it's not something I'm waiting for. There's plenty of better music out there that's available to everyone.

Trying to think of why this may upset them so much. The only thing I can think of is some of these songs were baby versions of more professional sounding major releases. As someone who produces music, it often takes a few versions or tries to achieve certain sounds and I don't like hearing work where I mixed something better later on, much less would I want anyone else to hear it. We obviously can't hear their music the way they can, but we all know they are extremely detailed. Probably over it now but I'm sure at first it struck a nerve or two because of the work that was put in to achieve the songs we actually hear. Warp doesn't just release anything, takes a lot of very hard work. Just listen to oscar see through red eye. Months/Years off and on I'm sure, didn't happen overnight.

[demo]

Trying to think of why this may upset them so much. The only thing I can think of is some of these songs were baby versions of more professional sounding major releases. As someone who produces music, it often takes a few versions or tries to achieve certain sounds and I don't like hearing work where I mixed something better later on, much less would I want anyone else to hear it. We obviously can't hear their music the way they can, but we all know they are extremely detailed. Probably over it now but I'm sure at first it struck a nerve or two because of the work that was put in to achieve the songs we actually hear. Warp doesn't just release anything, takes a lot of very hard work. Just listen to oscar see through red eye. Months/Years off and on I'm sure, didn't happen overnight.

You worded this beautifully, this is what makes the most sense to me.

[ZosoCon]

I’ll chime in with my usual points on this topic:

— The early albums weren’t “released to the general public” because there was no general public, no market for DIY tapes from unknown artists. They made and distributed as many as they could find homes for, which was few. They’re already released as legitimately as they need to be and we should be on the lookout for them or encourage anyone holding them to share. I don’t think they need a box set or to appear on Spotify or have all theIr samples cleared or any of that shit.

— At the time of the Old Tunes 1&2 and R35TT uploads it was a very different era in the world of music and the internet and artist’s attitudes toward unauthorized distribution. Everyone was wrestling with this. Also, BoC had been deeply working on some magnum opus level material that they would clearly not want to see under-shadowed by rudimentary early works. I can understand they’d be but hurt if their confidantes and colleagues were dumping that shit on Limewire in that era.

— I think we’re now at a level in critical appreciation of and canonization of BoC as unrivaled titans of their craft and artistry that their early recordings would no longer potentially detract from their standing. There’s a unique sensibility to be found in even their most primitive or out-of-genre works that resonates with their newer output in ways that might not have made sense in a pre Geogaddi/CH/TH world. Even their early works defy easy imitation. I’d hope that they’d throw the fans a bone (even though this small crazy minority of us fans that make noise online probably frightens/repulses them) and just toss the recordings up for everyone’s amusement, or mail a tape to NTS.

Well put. Fully agree.
I'll just add here what they said about the pre-twoism stuff from the 2005 Go Mag interview (translated from Spanish) for those who haven't read:

They do exist,

maintains Sandison

In their first incarnation they were cassette tapes, and we re-recorded some of them on CD, but the releases were very limited and they only circulated among our friends. We took great care to give them to the right people, in whose hands they would be safe; we never gave anything to people unless we knew them very well. If some of those releases have leaked on the Internet it's because we placed too much trust in someone, or because we distributed more copies than we needed to, there are twenty, thirty copies of some releases, but up to a hundred copies of others.

In all these years,

continues Eoin

only 'BoC maxima' and the two compilations of 'old tunes' have circulated widely on the Internet. But it wouldn't surprise me if, this coming year, we started seeing the complete 'Acid memories' appear out there. In any case, the fact that our tapes remain unreleased is a miracle; when we made them, we had no idea that anyone would invent this thing called MP3.

(emphasis mine on "complete" Acid Memories )

[happy_cycling]

Well put. Fully agree.
I'll just add here what they said about the pre-twoism stuff from the 2005 Go Mag interview (translated from Spanish) for those who haven't read:

They do exist,

maintains Sandison

In their first incarnation they were cassette tapes, and we re-recorded some of them on CD, but the releases were very limited and they only circulated among our friends. We took great care to give them to the right people, in whose hands they would be safe; we never gave anything to people unless we knew them very well. If some of those releases have leaked on the Internet it's because we placed too much trust in someone, or because we distributed more copies than we needed to, there are twenty, thirty copies of some releases, but up to a hundred copies of others.

In all these years,

continues Eoin

only 'BoC maxima' and the two compilations of 'old tunes' have circulated widely on the Internet. But it wouldn't surprise me if, this coming year, we started seeing the complete 'Acid memories' appear out there. In any case, the fact that our tapes remain unreleased is a miracle; when we made them, we had no idea that anyone would invent this thing called MP3.

(emphasis mine on "complete" Acid Memories )

That interview was in 2005, and it's 15 years later and Acid Memories still hasn't surfaced in it's entirety, only the EHX sample of Duffy is available to us. I think it's kinda funny how even in the world of P2P and leaks abound somehow those tracks never surfaced. Cause even BoC was like "yeah at this point, anything is possible." Shows that either they've been lost to time or those people were rightly trusted.

I mean some of those unnamed tracks on R35TT could in fact be cuts off of Play By Numbers, Acid Memories, or Hooper Bay and no one would ever know. Which might be what Eoin is referring to? Cause R35TT was leaked in 2004.

Interesting reads though, for sure.

[PurpleFlurp]

The fact that Marcus mentioned the “complete” Acid Memories being leaked in 2005, a year after R35TT, could mean that a fair amount of the album is already available to us right now and we’ve been listening to it for years.

[bungler666]

Yes we probably have. I say A10, A14, B04, B14&15.