Tomorrow's Harvest

[Torn n Frayed]

Here are some thoughts taken from Twitter about TH from guitarist Nick McCabe ex the Verve and current member of Black Submarine;

Tresilaze ‏@Tresilaze 19h
@BlackSubUK What is #BlackSub favorite album of the year?
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Black Submarine ‏@BlackSubUK 19h
@Tresilaze BoC "tomorrows harvest", work of genius, arovane "ve palor", good to have uwe back. nick
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1:58 PM - 6 Nov 13 · Details
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Tresilaze ‏@Tresilaze 19h
@BlackSubUK Agree w/BoC. Genius, would've been worth twice the wait. Never heard Arovane, will check it out. Always looking for good music.
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Black Submarine ‏@BlackSubUK 19h
@Tresilaze rare thing, anticipated album not only not-disappoints but makes you gawp in wonder. nick
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[A_Northern_Soul]

So until this week, I'd heard TH in the car, over speakers (quietly) at home, through a cheap pair of in-ear headphones I was using after my good ones broke. Great album, liked it a lot.

Finally got some replacement good headphones last week & decided to put them through their paces with TH.....

Bloody hell! It's like a different album! There's so much nuance and detail going on in there that I'd missed. It has just gone up in my estimation *a lot*.

[mouse_bums]

I really dig Tomorrow's Harvest. It's not that different for being so long in-between releases, but it's still an awesome album like their others. BoC just know how to make good music.

[fujee]

So until this week, I'd heard TH in the car, over speakers (quietly) at home, through a cheap pair of in-ear headphones I was using after my good ones broke. Great album, liked it a lot.

Finally got some replacement good headphones last week & decided to put them through their paces with TH.....

Bloody hell! It's like a different album! There's so much nuance and detail going on in there that I'd missed. It has just gone up in my estimation *a lot*.

Agreed. I am loving it.

Makes you think about how much you miss with all those other albums, from other bands you don't give another chance...

[polarbear]

[Chuck Beckles]

Yeah... I think the overwhelming praise for this album is just a bit disingenuous and it comes from the initial excitement that they finally came out with an album. I was excited at first, but I just found it to be much less engaging than their other work, even The Campfire Headphase, which people bash all the time. The Campfire Headphase just has more attention to detail, melody, and sense of adventure. It sounds like they tried. Over the years, so many people have adopted their sound that by the time this came out, it seems BoC didn't step up their game at all and it ends up sounding kind of generic and predictable. Really tame music for a very non-tame theme... the apocalypse? Come. On.

[rolypablo]

Nonsense.

[polarbear]

Yeah... I think the overwhelming praise for this album is just a bit disingenuous and it comes from the initial excitement that they finally came out with an album. I was excited at first, but I just found it to be much less engaging than their other work, even The Campfire Headphase, which people bash all the time. The Campfire Headphase just has more attention to detail, melody, and sense of adventure. It sounds like they tried. Over the years, so many people have adopted their sound that by the time this came out, it seems BoC didn't step up their game at all and it ends up sounding kind of generic and predictable. Really tame music for a very non-tame theme... the apocalypse? Come. On.

i havent the same thought as you, sorry..

[Najlepsiejszy]

Yeah... I think the overwhelming praise for this album is just a bit disingenuous and it comes from the initial excitement that they finally came out with an album. I was excited at first, but I just found it to be much less engaging than their other work, even The Campfire Headphase, which people bash all the time. The Campfire Headphase just has more attention to detail, melody, and sense of adventure. It sounds like they tried. Over the years, so many people have adopted their sound that by the time this came out, it seems BoC didn't step up their game at all and it ends up sounding kind of generic and predictable. Really tame music for a very non-tame theme... the apocalypse? Come. On.

Unfortunately I have to agree, especially about the hype part. I was really disappointed when I first heard TH on the live stream...Then I kind of convinced myself that I HAVE to like it, it's BoC, it's been 8 years...But after a few listens I just couldn't take it anymore and I haven't played in full since June.

[Opothecary]

Everyone knows my feelings about TH vs TCH, all that aside, next time I'd like them to go to the archives from circa Geogaddi through TH and just put together an album that has a bunch of songs that sound really good together, instead of inventing a concept and writing music around it over a long period of time.

While we're making wishes, I'd still like a boxset along those lines of course (from the pre-Twoism era) but this would be a different more concise album length thing.

MHTRTC somehow ended up feeling unified front to back despite being the best of the best from 1995ish-1998. I'd like to see that approach again applied to more recent material.

They must have enough good material in the artistic bank to feel confident about doing something like that, despite the general artistic desire to look forward, not backwards. Take a little time putting it together, release it in a year or two, while you spend the next 5 or 6 years working on the next concept album and everyone wins.

[polarbear]

Everyone knows my feelings about TH vs TCH, all that aside, next time I'd like them to go to the archives from circa Geogaddi through TH and just put together an album that has a bunch of songs that sound really good together, instead of inventing a concept and writing music around it over a long period of time.

While we're making wishes, I'd still like a boxset along those lines of course (from the pre-Twoism era) but this would be a different more concise album length thing.

MHTRTC somehow ended up feeling unified front to back despite being the best of the best from 1995ish-1998. I'd like to see that approach again applied to more recent material.

They must have enough good material in the artistic bank to feel confident about doing something like that, despite the general artistic desire to look forward, not backwards. Take a little time putting it together, release it in a year or two, while you spend the next 5 or 6 years working on the next concept album and everyone wins.

[Chuck Beckles]

Yeah... I think the overwhelming praise for this album is just a bit disingenuous and it comes from the initial excitement that they finally came out with an album. I was excited at first, but I just found it to be much less engaging than their other work, even The Campfire Headphase, which people bash all the time. The Campfire Headphase just has more attention to detail, melody, and sense of adventure. It sounds like they tried. Over the years, so many people have adopted their sound that by the time this came out, it seems BoC didn't step up their game at all and it ends up sounding kind of generic and predictable. Really tame music for a very non-tame theme... the apocalypse? Come. On.

Unfortunately I have to agree, especially about the hype part. I was really disappointed when I first heard TH on the live stream...Then I kind of convinced myself that I HAVE to like it, it's BoC, it's been 8 years...But after a few listens I just couldn't take it anymore and I haven't played in full since June.

I mean it's very well crafted and very labored over. Unfortunately, it's also very boring and sounds like overly-familiar BoCisms dressed in slightly different clothing giving you a weak handshake.

[Zwei Kreise]

I have to say it's by far the album I've listened to the most this year, and probably one of the albums I've listened to the most in recent years. To me the amazement just never ends. But I can understand people who aren't really into it, since it is quite a cold album, and whatever some critics may say I think it's still quite a departure from their other work, even more introspective, more layered, more dense than anything they've made before, in my book.

As far as recommendations for soundtracks go, I'd like to add one very underrated gem to the other picks mentioned earlier, and that is the soundtrack to The Andromeda Strain by Gil Melle. I was kind of surprised they did not mention it already because I think the sound design in this is closer to Tomorrow's Harvest than pretty much anything else. The track Wildfire in particular has sound design elements that are very reminiscent of some of the sounds on Gemini, though they are rougher around the edges. Here's a youtube vid of the album.

[Opothecary]

I mean it's very well crafted and very labored over. Unfortunately, it's also very boring and sounds like overly-familiar BoCisms dressed in slightly different clothing giving you a weak handshake.

So it's well crafted...and sounds like a BoC album? Maybe your tastes have changed?

[Chuck Beckles]

I mean it's very well crafted and very labored over. Unfortunately, it's also very boring and sounds like overly-familiar BoCisms dressed in slightly different clothing giving you a weak handshake.

So it's well crafted...and sounds like a BoC album? Maybe your tastes have changed?

Probably. But at the same time I still like so much of their other stuff and this sounds very... deflated, and not intentionally so. It kind of blends in with so much BoC-ish music coming out these days and doesn't rise near the top of the heap. They should have come back and showed everyone who's boss, and man... they really did not. The concept is cool, but I feel like the music is so obvious it takes a nosedive into coffee shop territory for me. Oh well. Music!

[Fireal420]

i have a few points\ideas id like to make here



first off. i think the long wait for tomorrows harvest is the reason some fans feel the album is lacking. most people (myself included) were really expecting BOC to do something completely different with the new record, and instead they kind of went right back into old BOC realms. if they had released the album shortly after the campfire headphase, it may have been more appropriate for some people. i think the wait overbuilt anticipation.


even though i am a fan of tomorrow harvest. i must admit. it almost sounds like an album that someone else would release inspired by BOC. like, if tomorrows harvest leaked 6 months in advance, and was posted on this forum as "THE NEW ALBUM", nobody would have believed it to be true. im sure we all would have agreed that it was either the best BOC rip off ever, or, it was past BOC songs that never made the prior albums. i highly doubt anybody would view the tracks as new material. yet the album is what it is



again, i really enjoy tomorrows harvest. i think there is an incredible visual element to the album. even the way the album starts is like the intro to a movie, and it continues to play out like a movie. i still feel as though there is some sort of movie BOC created that is to be played alongside tomorrows harvest.


last but not least. feel as though there is alot more to be discovered with this album. it kind of sucks that everyone went through so much work to try and get to the release of the album, but now that the album is out, most people have given up on trying to figure out more of the mystery.

[blankleader]

My feeling is that they were going for a much more cohesive, consistent tone that worked as a soundtrack to a fictional movie rather than a more vaguely (or not at all) connected mix of memory-triggering vignettes and longer pieces. In that regard, they pulled fit off very well.

The fact that they threw in a lot of obvious clues for "decoding" things on top of that soundtrack construct might feel like they were trying a little too hard in a simple and contrived way to still be classic, mystical Boards of Canada, but a part of me thinks that it's not simple or contrived at all and that there is something we just haven't figured out yet.

Either way, I love the album, and it continues to grow on me. Every bit of it.

[Fireal420]

but a part of me thinks that it's not simple or contrived at all and that there is something we just haven't figured out yet.

thats been my feeling ever since i first heard tomorrows harvest. like there is something much deeper happening. we just havent picked up on it yet.

[Chuck Beckles]

I wouldn't fall into the trap of convincing yourself that there is something there because they vaguely hinted at things in an interview and we expect BoC to be some infallible geniuses. Some storyline tacked onto the album won't make the tracks sound more fleshed out, engaging, or unique, you know? I think if it covered as much ground sonically as Geogaddi or yeah, TCH, I would be more convinced that there is some subtle hidden meaning that I didn't pick up on the first 50+ listens but that would be kind of ridiculous wouldn't it?

I mean they are a cult band in the true sense of the word. For better and worse.

[Opothecary]

The nuclear theme of TH wasn't "tacked on", they switched their logo to something along those lines at Warp's official site several years ago. They've known what they're doing for some time.

I get the idea that you don't appreciate the album, but to say that the fans or band are somehow retconning an apocalyptic theme to the album, or that the album somehow sounds "thin" (whatever that means, try listening to it on a good pair of headphones) it feels like it's exactly the album that they wanted to make, purposely disjointed early 80s soundtrack style music influenced by specific composers that have worked in the field for years, with some BoC style touches thrown in. Interviewers have mentioned this sort of sound, and they've confirmed their influences on the album.

It's still a dense album, but in a more subtle way than the wall of sound on Geogaddi. Lots of nice little sounds that keep you coming back. It's got lots of those little moments that TCH was lacking, especially after OSTRE.

If you don't like it, that's fine, but to call it cobbled together isn't fair to an artist that at least in their minds, absolutely never half asses anything. I will give you that there probably isn't some secret code or some earth shattering way of listening to the album that hasn't been discovered yet, but why does there need to be? They made that album already - I think it's enough to just throw in some easter eggs and shoutouts to placate that sort of fan. They don't want to be kept in the box even if its a big part of their success.