Tomorrow's Harvest

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The problem I find with TH for me is you have the usual BOC lovelyness in the form of Reach For The Dead, Cold Earth, Sick Times, Palace Posy, Nothing Is Real, Sundown, New Seeds, Come To Dust, etc, etc. But the other tracks and vignettes seem to suffer on the musical side of things and lean towards "incidental" soundtrack music instead which works fine with moving images but not so as a listening medium. Having an apocalyptic "soundtrack" theme tracks like Collapse, Split Your Infinites, Transmissions Ferox, Gemini, White Cyclosa contrast too much for me when compared to the more musical offerings on TH.

TH is a beautifully produced album there is no doubt of that but for me an album of two halves or sides which affects the overall listening experience as a whole.

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Stickyfingers72 wrote:The problem I find with TH for me is you have the usual BOC lovelyness in the form of Reach For The Dead, Cold Earth, Sick Times, Palace Posy, Nothing Is Real, Sundown, New Seeds, Come To Dust, etc, etc. But the other tracks and vignettes seem to suffer on the musical side of things and lean towards "incidental" soundtrack music instead which works fine with moving images but not so as a listening medium. Having an apocalyptic "soundtrack" theme tracks like Collapse, Split Your Infinites, Transmissions Ferox, Gemini, White Cyclosa contrast too much for me when compared to the more musical offerings on TH.

TH is a beautifully produced album there is no doubt of that but for me an album of two halves or sides which affects the overall listening experience as a whole.


I've started to like Tomorrow's Harvest a lot more because I've realized something- on Tomorrow's Harvest sounds are not easy (by their standards) to find. At the end of In The Annexe girls' voices are easily distinguishable. The Campfire Headphase was the album in which they started hiding sounds even beter in a way that these hidden parts are now very similar to the leading noises. Like in Satellite Anthem Icarus- at 1:54 there's a drum on the left channel, which is hidden under the main drum. I think the same thing is with Tomorrow's Harvest- all these ambient tracks like Gemini, White Cyclosa, probably have lots of hidden sounds too.

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After a half year TH stands as it was, a spiritual album like their previous work.

I think the best of Boc is on that vignettes, gemini, transimisiones ferox or uritual catch some kind of wave hypnotism. There is less dialogue and words on this one, they prefer to get deep on musical textures and melody rather than the all well know backwards and crypt messages.

The atmosphere it's sure darker and apocalyptic, sounds really like a sci-fi film. The conceptual line of Boc discography begins with a innocent but classic MHTRCH, followed by a chaotic organic geogaddi, the next step was a summer hymn called campfire headphase. The next direction they've put in is the cosmos/space and human interactions and comunications within.

If you see as a whole, it is the same genius music that they've been make since AFOT. Tomorrows harvest linked with the past somehow, you can recognize some momentos of AFOT mixed and tuned up in this new release. Is better if you try to listen the album at a different volume low, medium and very high, then you will discover more secrets on that magic songs.

regards.
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after listening to this album a number of different ways. i have come to the conclusion, that the absolute best way to take in tomorrows harvest. is by laying down in bed, putting the covers over your head so that you cant see any light, and then turn on the album and let the music paint the scene.



in telepath, it is absolutely amazing how the background music travels from the left channel to the right channel, almost seamlessly.


i never realized just how incredible the producing is on this album until recently.


so far. the track that has grown on me the most, is def. sick times. i cant believe how much i slept on this track when i first started listening to the album.

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agreed sick times is a real highlight,a track i slept on but now love is palace posy,the eerie background melodies are so old tunes style,love it!

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Najlepsiejszy wrote:
I've started to like Tomorrow's Harvest a lot more because I've realized something- on Tomorrow's Harvest sounds are not easy (by their standards) to find. At the end of In The Annexe girls' voices are easily distinguishable. The Campfire Headphase was the album in which they started hiding sounds even beter in a way that these hidden parts are now very similar to the leading noises. Like in Satellite Anthem Icarus- at 1:54 there's a drum on the left channel, which is hidden under the main drum. I think the same thing is with Tomorrow's Harvest- all these ambient tracks like Gemini, White Cyclosa, probably have lots of hidden sounds too.


this is it. I feel so delighted when it comes to finding the yet unfinded, even if I'm listening to this piece for a 100th time.
Last edited by green calx on Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Fireal420 wrote:after listening to this album a number of different ways. i have come to the conclusion, that the absolute best way to take in tomorrows harvest. is by laying down in bed, putting the covers over your head so that you cant see any light, and then turn on the album and let the music paint the scene.



in telepath, it is absolutely amazing how the background music travels from the left channel to the right channel, almost seamlessly.


i never realized just how incredible the producing is on this album until recently.


so far. the track that has grown on me the most, is def. sick times. i cant believe how much i slept on this track when i first started listening to the album.


That's a good way to enjoy the album, alone in the dark, let the sound feel your room, that's let me realize how cinematic some tracks are, to the point when music from the speakers becomes something more and it's drives you further and never holds you back, because of the production, as you said, which let you sink in to the details, if you want so

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boc pov porn

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I still really think this release is fantastic. I don't understand some of the lukewarm reaction, I feel like it wouldn't matter what TH ended up sounding like... in the end regardless people would still complain and say their older stuff is still better. I think that's more an issue of fans being willing to broaden their horizons and accept something new rather than the same boards of canada album over and over again. The amount of layering and texture as well as the production is absolutely beautiful and incredibly complex, and every time I listen to it I discover new intricacies. The only other release of theirs this happens to me with is Geogaddi, and I still think Tomorrow's Harvest is more intricate than that one.

I also really respect the minimal approach on it, though I don't like four or so of the shorter more ambient pieces, the full songs blow my mind and yet the brother's are keeping themselves restrained and modest with each bit and melody. I love the imagery and the ideas as well, and I think this one is as good as or better than other releases.

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The best way to experience TH is by listening to it through an old Sanyo record player from 1974.

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it seems to be a warning about the dangers of inequality and the trajectory on which that places us.

everything's intentional in the imagery, so the colour yellow is no accident.
split your infinities may = divide your freedoms.
it can be argued that what we call modern civilization is largely built on slavery (divisions). a collapse would likely involve a return to that state for most. that is hard to visualize/accept because it happens gradually in the beginning, first conceptually then by degrees which are accepted or ignored by the majority until a tipping point is realized.
boc are excellent purveyors of the surreptitious nature of marketing, perception, politics, all things anthropogenic. the indirect nature of communication sometimes points to the larger lesson. we don't have it spelled out for us simple as a mathematical symbol like < . instead we have gemini, who are identical but separated.

it can also be argued that a good riddle teaches better than a regurgitated lesson. sometimes one needs only to craft a very good arrow, and the lesson unfolds as you walk the path and complete the picture.
-

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Obviously there's a BoC fan down at Steam;

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2099 ... r_beta.php

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I'm still listening to this album. Weird thing is, Tomorrow's Harvest would not make a desert island disks list of Boards of Canada albums but some of the tracks are quite ugly yet addictive. 'Palace Posy' was one of the worst things I had ever heard but no listen to it on the regular.

Still trying to unpack the meanings behind the album. I'm a bit of a dilettante when talking about music but some of the samples (?) they use have been in previous albums. And a lot of the tracks sound a bit like some bad signal or whatever they recorded the music too has warped or disintegrated. Anyone else think they're trying to kill their old sound and move onto something new or something else?

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I think that the album is a social commentary AND a tale of a man who is the only survivor of some disaster.

It works as a social commentary because it's like an expression of sadness over the fact that we don't appreciate beauty and art anymore. People used to laugh at those who don't read books, but now those people are "proud" of the fact that they don't read. Or for example- many movies make lots of money not because they have a great, complex meaning, but because they were advertised everywhere and they're full of explosions. We can also notice simplification of art. An example is that music is now mostly about being louder, not being better. Or just listen to the radio. I can guarantee you that you'll hear waaay too many trance songs which sound "epic", like you're going to a party and stuff.

And I think that the tale doesn't need any explanation. Just listen to TH.

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This album just blew my socks off again

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Najlepsiejszy wrote:I think that the album is a social commentary AND a tale of a man who is the only survivor of some disaster.

It works as a social commentary because it's like an expression of sadness over the fact that we don't appreciate beauty and art anymore. People used to laugh at those who don't read books, but now those people are "proud" of the fact that they don't read. Or for example- many movies make lots of money not because they have a great, complex meaning, but because they were advertised everywhere and they're full of explosions. We can also notice simplification of art. An example is that music is now mostly about being louder, not being better. Or just listen to the radio. I can guarantee you that you'll hear waaay too many trance songs which sound "epic", like you're going to a party and stuff.

And I think that the tale doesn't need any explanation. Just listen to TH.


I'm not so sure about this at all. I think most of these statements are vague and over-generalized. There has always been the dualism between art and meaningless crap. And believe me there are millions of people who still "appreciate art" and millions of counterexamples of this lack of art/beauty. It's not getting worse exactly, there's just a paradigm shift. Every generation has its 'edm' and its 'art' these definitions change with the changing culture.

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it is incredibly great and a cool thing that my topic was deleted without any sort of notification or message to me as to why it was a shitty topic even though i knew it was. basically i'm just wondering if there is any sort of instant relay chat for boards of canada since there does not seem to be an irc resource in this forum

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freenode ##boardsofcanada altho im the only person to have been there in 6 months really :P

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Still haven't listened to this album in it's entirety more then 15 times, kinda weird, because I like it.

This might be blasphemy, but I like Geogaddi and The Campfire Headphase best, then TH and I like MHTRTC the least, even though it has awesome tracks like Olson on it.

Edit:

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure of that, haven't listened to MHTRTC in ages. Gonna be so psyched when the Vinyl album pack is finally coming. Gonna have a good old BoC album listening party with some friends. I don't listen to a lot of BoC these days.
When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare in the sun

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