Well, Google Chrome did an okay job:
For almost a year ago I was on my way to Scotland to meet with Boards of Canada . I was quite surprised to have received an interview because the two gentlemen in the band not been so talkative like that for eight years. It was a Thursday night at ten o'clock, I sat at Volupte and had a little anxiety. My flight to Edinburgh would go in just under ten hours but I still did not know where, when and how I would meet with Boards of Canada. With my need for control was the uncertainty made me a nervous wreck. Then came a text message with directions. Museum of the Chamber's St., enter through revolving doors, up the stairs, through the main exhibition, a café area on the right, at five o'clock. Signed "X". It was not until a day later, I was sure that this article would actually be written.
Not many bands in the electronic genre is as legendary as The Boards of Canada. They broke through with "Music Has The Right To Children" in 1997, an album that changed the map of electronic music and created an army of young producers, inspired by its sound. What made the album so special was that it drew its energy from the future, but rather from yesterday. "Music Has The Right To Children" was a distant memory on a super-8 film, as if the duo had tried to recreate his childhood with samplers and sequencers but not quite able to get everything right, but instead built the picture of how they remembered it as adults. At the same time as it was forward thinking in music downloaded is nourished by nostalgia and längran back.
After "Music Has The Right To Children" pulled Boards of Canada back to their base in rural areas in Edinburgh, took four years to release the sequel "Geogaddi" and thus lost, they also control over their image. »Geogaddi" was spiced with occultism, mathematical formulas, references to religious cults and geometry. Every time you listen to it revealed something new, and every detail that emerged mattered. This electronicans equivalent of the "DaVinci Code" was analyzed apart and together on site and to Boards of Canada refused to do another promotion than a few e-mail interviews only fueled the rumors. It was said that they were Satanists, occultists, they lived in the cult-like conditions in a creative collective, that they tried to brainwash people through music, they were hippies, they were the Devil in the electronic soundscapes.
So what should I believe? If I was surprised when they agreed to an interview so I was almost terrified by it which the SMS is. Why would some who have not done interviews since his debut album eight years ago suddenly want to see a confused Swedish if there was a purpose to it? I saw myself becoming mortar in the construction of the myth of Boards of Canada, a funny anecdote to raise in future press releases: "Once they fooled even an unsuspecting Swedish journalist to a museum in Edinburgh to ..."
The clock is two minutes in five the next day. I can counter the German backpackers and Japanese tourists into the museum, but when I arrive is the cafe is empty. Prick five starts dozens of ancient church bells to call, the staff stacking chairs at each other and a guard comes up and asks me to leave the premises because they are closing. I still do not think there will be no interview. I make the text to the number of days before I got the message from and ask for an update. In ten minutes outside the main entrance, reads the response.
A moment later I'm sitting in the backseat of a car. There it sits Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison and debating which place is best to do the interview, based on where there are parking lots. The duo is Boards of Canada (and also apparently are brothers, but I did not know then, it was found in another interview some months later) says that most people do not know about it but that half of the population of Edinburgh is lapplisor. They are friendly, ask how the trip was, excuse the rain that whips off and says I should try to come here one more time so I'll see how beautiful the city is having better weather. They are the very antithesis of the recalcitrant UNA-bomb-like eccentrics, which I expected to meet.
- That we did not make promotion is not because we are shy or reclusive. We just will not seem so much. We do not want to be in people's faces all the time and want our audience to discover the music itself rather than that they are told to listen to us through advertising, "says Marcus when we sat down in a bar. They bought expensive imported stocks of mine and blows off the money when I want to pay. They are surprised that anyone would be willing to travel from Sweden just to talk to them and says that the least they can do is to bid on beer.
- The reason we do interviews now is that we want the journalists to meet with us personally, "continues Michael. There have been so very strange for us that most people believe that they come here to meet with two druids in kaftans performing sacrifice at the top of a volcano. We want to meet them for real now to show that we're just two regular guys.
- We are not Gandalf, we are not walking around, each with a wand and reciting formulas and we are not a few hippies, "laughs Mark.
It's clear that Boards of Canada are two people who have known each other since the sandbox. They talk constantly about "we" or "us". They finish each other's sentences. When one of them get stuck in an argument the other picks up the thread and continue. Marcus comes with spontaneous views, says straight out what he thinks and joke a lot. Michael is on the other side a bit more prudent. He thinks before he lays out theories of what their music is and pulls often in order to explain a sentence that Marcus said with a long exposition to a more mediated gospel artist probably understood would be unnecessary as far as theorizing rarely do well when transcribed into text of an article. But media savvy is not what Boards of Canada is. My meeting with them was their third interview before the release of the album "The Campfire Head Phase" and they had thus done more interviews in one week than they did in the last eight years.
After "Music Has The Right To Children" got tired of that being misquoted, wanted to gain control over his words and began to communicate with the outside world through email, though not in it without restrictions. In addition to an e-mail interview with NME , they chose not to answer some major newspapers, but instead it was smaller, niche musikmagasin who had the opportunity to "talk" with them. But they discovered that silence and e-mail interviews, although it could be misinterpreted.
- We are not interested in the whole music industry thing, "says Marcus. We are not at all festivities and learn not to feel all you feel, for the simple reason that we are happiest at home with our friends. The only problem is that when you are absent on the way so people take matters into their own hands and fill in the blanks themselves. Unfortunately coincided our decision not to do any interviews with the release of "Geogaddi", so maybe we blame ourselves a bit.
- »Geogaddi" is an experiment, "continues Michael. We added a lot of messages on the disc, mostly to give the instrumental songs a bit more sense but also to amuse us. The problem was that not everyone understood it was tongue in cheek and took it very seriously. And because we chose not to appear so began others decide what kind of band we were and suddenly acted all articles about whether we lived in a cult or not.
- I think we underestimated the power to make such a record, "says Marcus.
- And the sad thing is that the focus moves to what we always thought were important, such as music. No offense, but we did not start making music to be in the newspapers, "said Michael, smiling.
»Geogaddi" was a dark album. There was a pre-apocalyptic atmosphere above it, as if Boards of Canada knew anything about the world not of us knew. »Geogaddi" was not just the result of a band trying to make it through in his music but was also filled with heavy mathematical and mystical symbolism that made the pages began to appear on the Internet where the album was analyzed. If one reads the pages, among other things, that a track like "1969" contains a sample with the name "David Koresh" backwards. The song is 4:19 long, which is consistent with the date, 19 April 1993, when Koresh cult in Waco, Texas, was stormed. Song titles, "1969" refers to the year in which it was prohibited for U.S. army to use the type of gas that Koresh took the lives of himself and the cult members with the massacre at Waco.
- About two-thirds of what it says on the website is on the album, the rest have they found in themselves, "laughs Mark. It's like Kabbalah. You take a page from the Torah, keep it up and down in front of a mirror and say "Look! I see a letter up here! Everything is now! It's true! ".
- Man is programmed to find patterns, thinking Michael. Even when we are babies we learn to recognize faces and voices. If anyone thinks that our music is built in symbols and start looking so they will also find them because that is what humans are good at. Actually we did on "Geogaddi" just music that we liked and then we filled it with little messages. The problem was that we did so subtly and so misunderstood by the many.
- We lost sight of what Boards of Canada actually is, "said Marcus. Others began to define what the band was for us, and that is why we do interviews now. We want to show who's driving this bus.
If "Geogaddi" created the great myth of Boards of Canada, it was their first major album, "Music Has The Right To Children" as the band's name on everyone's lips. In various configurations had Marcus, Michael and their friends experimented with music literally since childhood. Around 1987 they began to compose in a more organized way and in the early nineties had Marcus and Michael started work as the duo that they still are. When Warp 1997, the Boards of Canada "Music Has The Right To Children" became their campfire electronica a contrast to our other, slightly hysterical profile. When it came sounded Boards of Canada really does not like anything else. Sure, there had been producers for years have made ambient electronic music, but they often played with dolphin sounds and everything sounded fine.
"Music Has The Right To Children" was smooth but very skewed. It was just time something "not true". They played pretty solid piece of broken sound. They played wonderful melodies, but they were slightly out of tune. The sampled information films and happy little children as they played the eerie analog synthesizers. There was something "wrong" with the entire album, as a vinyl single that is not in the middle of the turntable and thus sway. In addition, they used hip-hop beats and acoustic instruments as they sampled and then destroyed, resulting in a completely different tone than those which exclusively used the synthetic sounds. Marcus says that it has always been lopsided in their sound comes from one of them finally find a song they're working on is the standard and ask the others to "go diamond". The call to "do something diagonally" means the Boards of Canada's studio to add sound that breaks the linear, something that runs counter to how the song is constructed.
When "Music Has The Right To Children" came was it for me, and probably also for many others, an awakening. At that time I lived enough in a world where electronic music was either psychedelic rave madness or ambient Mascot. Boards of Canada took the mood of the former, but put it with something more like the latter, and thus landed somewhere in between. They were not afraid to express the nature of romance, of misty autumn beaches or quiet nights camping in the highlands. "Music Has The Right To Children 'put simply a standard and after the album came a plethora of artists whose energy came from there. I believe that they have been for the dreamy electronic music what the Ramones were to punk rock, but Boards of Canada themselves do not agree with it.
- I would never say to someone else sounds like us just because they have listened to us, for it would be pure bullshit, "says Marcus. Some who liked the plate perhaps had ideas and was moving in that direction in their own music, but as we've also done when you heard anything good and thought: 'Oh, this is how we should do. " All those who make music inspired by other music.
- It may have been the case that there were others who did the same thing as us all the time but with "Music Has The Right To Children" as found in both the and record labels that there was indeed an audience for that type of music, "says Michael . As for the obvious loans it has actually been mostly very flattering to hear. The only time it has felt pain was when the track list for "The Camp Fire Head Phase" came out and spread a few songs that they made themselves on the Internet under the name of Boards of Canada, with titles taken from the album. They include children's voices, hip-hop beats and our sign, and the strange thing is that some of it is actually very good music. I do not understand how someone dryers sit at home and make music, then post it in our name.
- In a way it's good, says Marcus. Those who make carbon copies of our music that way shows that it is possible to make a mockery of our sound. Therefore, these parodies are the motivation for us to find new ways to express ourselves in, instead of repeating the same things.
What I try to argue that goes Marcus and Michael refused to "Music Has The Right To Children" was a trendsetting albums. They explain that "Twoism" felt much more groundbreaking when they did it and that what came to be their big release on Warp was just a natural result of a musical style that they had already embarked on. I say that I appreciate their humility, but ask if they honestly really have not noticed the impact of their breakthrough had on electronic music in the years to come. They say that they can not see things from their perspective and to respect other composers too much to take on some sort of honor. First, I do not know what to believe, but every after hours yesterday, I understand that there is someone dressed himself understatement, but that they actually only made the music they like and a bit naive way does not actually understand how I can sit and make such claims . They admit however that the sound of "Music Has The Right To Children" is no longer unique. For someone who became interested in electronic music lately seems the album will probably be rather standardized electronic music because it released so much music whose original nature is to be found in the album.
- After "Geogaddi" said some reviews that "this is common light electronica," smiles Michael. But when we did 'Music Has The Right To Children "as were others in the jungle and then we were not just ordinary light electronica. The problem with "Geogaddi" was that it took four years for us to release it so we probably missed the train a bit.
- It has been a problem for us, "said Marcus. It's rather sad when one finds a sound that we thought it felt entirely new and fresh now suddenly ubiquitous. It has made us stop and think "where is there room for us now?".
- When we did "The Campfire Head Phase" we tried to make it as easy as possible, "explains Michael. We wanted to scale it down to the ground and write music that was simple. The album is a road movie about a man who parks his car and beat up his tent. The music is going on in the man's head as he sits in front of the fire before he goes to bed. The only problem is that there are so many out there who "know" how we should leave. The album was leaked online this week and I read some responses to a discussion forum. Half said "they were much better on" Music Has The Right To Children ", why can not they leave so rather than to experiment" and the other half said "oh, they sound exactly as they have always done." It is simply impossible to win.
- Damned if you do, damned if you do not, "Marcus and shrugs.
- I still love the "Music Has The Right To Children" but we could never make an album that sounds like now.
Boards of Canada release rate has probably contributed to the band's myth both positively and negatively. Four albums in ten years is not a normal case for most producers of electronic music, and while it built up rumors about their supposed remarkable life, it has also created great expectations among fans before each release.
- We have always had good reasons not to release albums as often, "says Michael. Prior to "The Camp Fire Head Phase" so we moved to new studios and I became a father. The way we work also means that it takes a long time for us to do our music. It is not a conscious but just the way we write our music at
- If you look at bands of the seventies and eighties, they released no new albums every year, "said Marcus. The real bands, groups such as Led Zeppelin, they took 2-3 years to the purely natural grounds tours, private and stuff. Today it is so unreasonable demands on you to be productive. Everything can be turned on and off, fast. Films may be on pay-per-view with the touch of a button. If you want a new album so it does not matter if it is released in November for the "hey, there are already on Soulseek". There is such incredible demand on speed and the problem with that is that it reduces the quality of the music. We were able to release a new album after 12 months' Geogaddi "but it had not been as good.
- If I lived at my parents house and had no responsibilities so I could sit at the laptop with a pair of headphones and release a new album every week, "says Michael.
When we break up from the bar offered me a ride home to my hotel. The rain is still falling and it sounds like a very good idea. Michael explains the way that it is a prejudice that it is always raining in Edinburgh and repeat that I really ought to come here again to see the city from its right side. I just thanked him for the ride and will get out when it occurs to me that the most important question of them all had not actually asked. The common thread through Boards of Canada all records are, after all the campfire. Whether it is with the letter or just in the mood, there's always a camp fire with their songs. Was also just part of the great myth that Michael and Marcus over the last few hours, hacked to pieces in front of my tape recorder?
- We say like this ... If I had to choose between going to a crowded club in London and dance or go out to a deserted beach and go camping with some friends and a bottle of wine, I prefer the latter any day of the week, "said Marcus.
- But we are not hippies or anything, "adds Michael quickly.
From this interview, I have two hours of interview tapes in which Marcus and Michael says lots of good things. I began to transcribe them to publish the best parts of the interview in its entirety and untranslated here, but gave up after 20 minutes. Instead, I wrote about parts of the above text originally appeared in Sonic. Transliteration of the interview is now on the to-do-if-Unemployed-or-other wise-in-need-of-kid-time list.
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Wonder if I know you? Its a quite small city..
