Tomorrow's Harvest

[Mexicola]

In over a year?!? Wow. Your loss man. I agree its not their seminal work, and some tracks I can take or leave. But there's an awful lot of great material on there.

[Najlepsiejszy]

I dunno, the album just doesn't feel right. Making a movie about music is OK to me, but making music about films...is weird

OSTs are an entirely different thing because they're accompanied by something on a screen

[PlacentaSand]

the screen is in your mind

[Najlepsiejszy]

the screen is in your mind

No, not really...old sci-fi movies are not my piece of cake

[d e n]

I feel like I wasn't totally ready to take the whole record in initially, yet now I the more I've been attentively listening to the record as a whole the more I want to listen to it.

BOC if you're reading this...

i'm proud of you guys

you kept with the vision and it is broadcasting clearly for those who are there to listen

[mr3]

x2

[green calx]

I listened to the whole cd on repeat while sleeping tonight, and I noticed that Nothing is Real is just poor. If it's one of their melodic tracks, it would be easy eaten by Everything You Do Is A Balloon, Pete, etc.
Maybe if I listened to it on headphones, doing nothing but listening. I was never really keen on this track

[aoc]

Hate to say it. But in my honest opinion, I think Tomorrow's Harvest isn't that great. I've given it a lot of listens but I just can't love the record as much that i'm doing with the rest of their work. Ofcourse, TH has some great songs on it but the thing that annoys me the most are the many use of arpeggiator lines that I find ugly. For example: Collapse, Split Your Infinities, Come To Dust. Besides that I think White Cyclosa, Jacquard Causeway and the soundscape-like songs are boring.

I'm not a big fan how they produced TH. It sounds less organic than let's say Geogaddi. I understand that an artist wants to renew, try other things, sounds etc... But I think the sound of TH didn't work out very well for them. Heck, sometimes I get the impression that they used Native Instruments plugins to get things done so they can get back to the pub.

Anyway, people probably will start hating on my post. I don't care, I just want to share my opinion. It's always a matter of taste ofcourse.

And just like all of us, I'm looking forward what their next record will be like. Cheers.

[Najlepsiejszy]

Ofcourse, TH has some great songs on it but the thing that annoys me the most are the many use of arpeggiator lines that I find ugly. For example: Collapse, Split Your Infinities, Come To Dust. Besides that I think White Cyclosa, Jacquard Causeway and the soundscape-like songs are boring.

I'm not a big fan how they produced TH. It sounds less organic than let's say Geogaddi. I understand that an artist wants to renew, try other things, sounds etc... But I think the sound of TH didn't work out very well for them. Heck, sometimes I get the impression that they used Native Instruments plugins to get things done so they can get back to the pub.

Excellent list!

What I would also add to the list of faults is a feeling of complete nihilism and it's almost as if they want to show it off. Okay, we get it, you grew up- you didn't have to release a whole album about that. It's like they've completely abandoned all their legacy- Red Moon, satanism, controlling one's memories. Has TH reminded you of anything besides some sci-fi stuff?

This album is completely bland on its message. "Hey, sci-fi movies are cool. But hey, the world is SCAAAAARYYYY and SPOOOOKYYYYYY. IT'S AN ATOMIC BOMB WATCH OUT". There are many interpretations of the previous albums, so many feelings they evoke, but TH lays everything out on the table: "act scared and like there's nothing you can do"

TH feels empty. Turn on a TCH song (EP or LP) or a Geogaddi song or a whatever (besides TH obviously lol) song and you'll be almost immediately hit by the amount of sound and layers they have put on their tracks. On TH no track is lush or detailed compared to their previous tracks.

Of course these are my opinions. And the one I can't justify: some tracks feel so completely emotionless- there isn't even any of that nihilism stuff in them. This loop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYOr8TlnqsY for me conveys more emotion than any ambient track on TH

[arvy]

How this is possible?

Heck, sometimes I get the impression that they used Native Instruments plugins to get things done so they can get back to the pub.

During the recording sessions, Boards of Canada used a wide range of vintage hardware and equipment, including an effects unit "that cost [Eoin and Sandison] a lot of time and road miles to source."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow's_Harvest

[Peacock Tail]

For me personally, TH feels like an album where the overwhelming conceptual details actually took priority over the musical content.

<takes cover>

[Najlepsiejszy]

For me personally, TH feels like an album where the overwhelming conceptual details actually took priority over the musical content.

<takes cover>

So the quality of the songs doesn't matter, but the choices they've made while making them does?

[d e n]

"Eoin: ...there's an even weirder phenomenon where some fans actually think they know how our new music is supposed to sound, [so] they scold us for getting it wrong!"

[Najlepsiejszy]

Except that's not what I've said at all. I had no expectations of what TH would sound like. It doesn't mean that it's a big hit and a miss (IN MY OPINION)

[d e n]

i only wanted to add something to the mix to keep the conversation moving

quote was posted in response to you saying how the new record is somehow missing their original voice:

i hear a lot of their original voice and themes Tomorrow's Harvest

e.g

it opens with a recreation of a public broadcast film indent

Counting on Telepath akin to the number station recording on Gyroscope

Cold Earth is full of chopped samples of children voices

[Cupz]

Im starting to really enjoy Tomorrow's Harvest.

[Peacock Tail]

For me personally, TH feels like an album where the overwhelming conceptual details actually took priority over the musical content.

<takes cover>

So the quality of the songs doesn't matter, but the choices they've made while making them does?

Almost. I'd say the quality of the songs DID matter but the design mattered more.

[Najlepsiejszy]

i only wanted to add something to the mix to keep the conversation moving

quote was posted in response to you saying how the new record is somehow missing their original voice:

i hear a lot of their original voice and themes Tomorrow's Harvest

e.g

it opens with a recreation of a public broadcast film indent

Counting on Telepath akin to the number station recording on Gyroscope

Cold Earth is full of chopped samples of children voices

I dunno if it's a PB indent, more like one of the intros movie companies show at the beginning of a movie

Gyroscope doesn't really sound like a number station at all, I think. It's just a girl who's counting. Numbers stations sound entirely different https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg3dsOdRAPE

Yeah I guess that one song has this boy's voice...

But it's almost as if they're REFERENCING some of their old stuff, but none of it is in there still. Changing a direction in which an artist goes is one thing, but abandoning a whole legacy is a different thing altogether.

There is none of that weird warmth which to me was present even throughout Geogaddi, the usage of lots of distorted sounds of nature, real instruments AND synthesizers is gone- it's an entirely new direction. I guess you could say that after 8 years of course there was bound to be some change, but I feel like if they had released some stuff which actually showed in what direction they are evolving, what they are experimenting with, I would like TH a lot more.

The change is simply too abrupt. I'm listening to Trans Canada Highway and I listen to myself- oh boy, those were some nice, lush, detailed songs! A perfect addition to The Campfire Headphase! I wonder what's next! And then Tomorrow's Harvest comes in with nothing of that original flavour left. It's a shock to my delicate, poor ears.

I guess that my feelings are comparable to those people who absolutely hate TCH (LP/EP) because they're ENTIRELY different from Geogaddi, which is probably their most popular album...?

[d e n]

I wouldn't expect them to not change the number station sample in Gyroscope at all... according to information on bocpages the counting in Gyroscope is literally taken from a recording of a Number Station broadcast that Autechre gifted to Boards of Canada.

[d e n]

P.S I think what you said at the end makes sense... i.e the change from Campfire Headphase to Tomorrow's Harvest is significant in a similar way as the shift from the sounds of Geogaddi to Campfire Headphase... therefore, the legacy you're referencing is continuing in someway?