Interviews | help needed

Everything related to our favorite Scottish duo.

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All 86 interviews are visible, sorted by era, on the main interviews page.
They are also visible on this single page for easy CTRL+F keyword searching.

2022-10-25
Additionally I updated the public google sheets file.
There are three tabs visible:
  • Timeline (part of https://bocpages.org/wiki/Timeline)
  • Interviews (status overview of all interviews with regards to scans, transcription and translation)
  • Interviews-translation (this shows the missing translations)
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The screenshot above shows 26 uploaded interviews with either missing (16) or wonky (10) translations.

We're in need of translators capable of Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. I have the last one, in Dutch, on my todo list.

Any help in completing the missing parts is appreciated. Feel free to reply here or contact me.
There's also a bocpages discord to discuss wiki editing in general.

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Updated the OP with some additional information.

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i have managed to translate the 'I Colori Dela Musica Elettronica' from Italian to English, i'll be posting it in parts because it's too lengthy when typed out in full.
Enjoy the first part! :wink:

The colors of electronic music

"In space no one can hear you scream, which the universe is a variety of turquoise. American researchers have revealed that the average color, that is, the one that would be obtained if all visible light were mixed, is a greenish hue between aquamarine and turquoise. The universe has already gone through it's blue period, dominated by young stars, and is currently in it's green phase, which basically corresponds to it's middle age. In it's final phase, red will dominate"

It is with this news that a few days Warp decides to announce the imminent release of Geogaddi, the new boards of canada album. The operation, in the most classic style of the Sheffield label, triggers at least a couple of considerations in the most attentive to the iconography of the Scottish duo: the first is that taking into account the abundant use of turquoise in the covers and titles of the BoC, the news seemed almost perfectly artificial; the second, more disturbing, is that, if you look at the cover of Geogaddi - of children who go around a tree in a chromatic scale that varies from yellow to red - one wonders if this is not their definitive album. And then, before it's too late, lets tell their story.

Mike Sandison (born July 14, 1971) and Marcus Eoin (born May 27, 1973) have known each other since childhood. when, through numerous changes of residence of their respected families, from the north of England to the state of Alberta in Canada and back, they begin to play different instruments and show a strong passion for synthesizers and samplers. Their first experiments comment on visual projects, documentaries shot in a home way with a super-8. It is in homage to the National Film Board of Canada, whose films are eagerly consumed by the two and their small group of friends, that the original formation takes it's name: it is 1986 and Marcus plays the bass, but what will come in the following years it is in a certain way already anticipated by the intertwining of instruments with the sounds emitted by personal computers and with those captured by radio and television. The halo of mystery that surrounds the activity of the very first BoCs is thick and dense: it is said that they have changed formation fourteen times, that they have been a real exception - hard to be surprised, given that a fascinating anomaly they still are today - in the Scottish live circuit, having to reconcile their influences ranging from the Cocteau twins to Front 242. With the need to support an almost infinite series of cover bands dedicated to glam-rock, and that to avoid the shame they started to autonomously set up outdoor happenings, where greeted by huge bonfires, he attended film-musical installations in which old television themes or nursery rhymes of childhood memory were tortured by pressing electronic rhythms or turned over with over-insisting of messages in the backwards. What is certain is that in 1989 the Boards of Canada are now reduced to an essential core of three elements - Mike, Marcus and a certain Chris -, who decides to create his own recording studio. called Hexagon sun, in the Pentland Hills in north-east Scotland (the open countryside surrounding Edinburgh). For a long time they recorded a harvest of e.p and albums for the self-financed Music70, but none of which went beyond the narrow confines of the family circle and friendships; recalls Mike, "We've been making music since school in the 1980s and no one will ever listen to it. Our friends and families are the only ones who hear everything we write and that's what we really matters. We must remain speechless for how much material we have on tape"


i will post the next part of the translation later today. :D
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'I Colori Dela Musica Elettronica' Italian to English Translation (part 2)

The turquoise phase

Not everything remains unknown: in 1996, Twoism, yet another limited edition work ends up in the Manchester Skam label and it's melancholy melodies supported by dry and slow electronic scores convince Sean Booth of Autechre to call Marcus on the same day and Mike - who have remained a duo in the meantime. What comes out of this meeting is Hi-scores, an ep that is actually more of a mini (six tracks for about thirty minutes) that fully shows the BoC aesthetic: a simple yet effective writing that mixes subtle hi-hop. To references to the first electro wave (Nlogax), but on which an immense melodic capacity dominates that puts it a notch above the pile. That the group is already mature is evidenced by the presence of the future classic Turquoise hexagon sun (later reprised in the debut album) and the long and final Everything you do is a balloon, which gives the sensation of flying across the ocean on a air balloon. Difficult to find a category or a label; the deepest waters of the songs are too agitated to be ambient, but also too soft and dreamlike to be techno. Also for this reason BoC became 'hot property' and their 1997 was characterised by a frenetic activity: participation in a series of limited edition EPs - no more than 200 copies - published jointly with the name MASK by Skam and the German company. Musik aus Strom (for which they record both under the name BoC and under the alter ego Hell Interface), the inevitable handful of remixes, and many concerts with Autechre, Plaid and Seefel, and even the appearance at the phoenix festival in summer. In Febuary 1998 after a few months of persistent rumours, Warp confirms that is has signed the Boards of Canada. So, after the publication of a 7 "edition of the song Aquarius, Music has the right to children finally arrives in April. Any hyperbole you have read about it is justified: Music is as much in terms of absolute quality as it is for the ability to influence the movements of the electronic scene - I correct myself, of the scene and that's it; think of Radiohead - one of the fundamental records from the past decade. Marcus and Mike refine the original ideas present in Hi-scores and develop a long work of sixty-three minutes that crosses the syncopated and somewhat sinister stammering of Telephasic workshop, the lunar transmissions of Sixtyten, the repetitive eddies of Rue the whirl, alternating to sound sketches that hardly exceed one minute and that often must be counted among the best things on the record. On the latter, in particular, Mike underlines how "we are trying to compose horizontally, when it is so obvious to write by adding and removing things that then come back. We perfectly understand the principle that if you insert something fascinating into a song only once you will force who listens to play the record again to be able to listen to it again. It's like that passage in Strawberry fields where there's a little voice that says 'I Buried Paul' and it's so hidden, yet audible, that you wonder if you imagined it or if it's only on your copy of the disk ". Some call it witchcraft, but by refining their art, the duo seems to have become almost superflou at their epiphany: it is as if the machines come to life and communicate without a human link. This is perhaps the reason the images of children on the cover have defined appearance - and personal at the same time, because it is the listener who decrypts it and loads it with content, thanks to the complicity of vocal fragments or short messages. The claim of the right to the imagination (the offence of which the censors could accuse the BoC, as suggested in the closing of One important thought) is immediately acknowledged by the specialised press, which dope having rightly paid him the title of album of the month and then of the year almost everywhere, in the case of English NME, he also inserts it in the list of 25 psychedelic discs of all time (for the record, the first is Tommorow never knows of the Beatles).

Epilogue: towards the red phase

Then? How do you follow up one of the most acclaimed records ever? The risk is to wrap around themselves and end up like My Bloody Valentine, still looking for the perfect sound without a single note having seen the light in the last ten years. It is what evidently our people too must have gone through if the rumours that given in the recording studio since the summer of 1998 for a fateful second album first announced for the beginning of 1999and then on a constant basis must have passed. Postponed to an indefinite date. The releases have become increasingly rarefied: first the publication of the peel session recorded for the Radio One program in June 1998 and judged by Peel himself as 'excellent', but which actually ads little to the knowledge of of the Scottish duo, if not the possibility of recovering a Happy cycling otherwise destined for the collectors market (and closing track of the American version of Music has the right to children), then the contribution to the albums for the ten years of Warp. Finally, more than a year ago a new e.p., in a beautiful place out in the country, which rather than satisfying appetites ended up feeding them out of all proportion. Representing the hottest moment of the entire discography. The vocal fragments are almost singing in the title track and add a new dimension to the contrast rhythmic / melodic of the past: the songs get longer and seem to be able to last indefinitely, like a celestial and visionary dream (Zoetrope, Kid for today). I don't know anyone who hasn't listened to the e.p. at least four times in a row just purchased., mesmerised by what Mike calls 'the emotional power of melody'. And those who managed to see them triumph at the 2001 edition of the All tommorows parties also talked about hypnosis and magic, where to add mystery there were long black drapes lowered over the stage equipment. A few lucky ones. But now, if you are reading this article, listening to Geogaddi, as I am doing, lucky us too. The wait is over.
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' I Colori Dela Musica Elettronica' Italian to English Translation (part 3)

The interview

It was the case that even those directly concerned told theirs; and so, with a short and quick exchange of e-mails, these are the opinions and revelations of the two Boards of Canada.

The release of Geogaddi has been announced several times and as many times postponed. Perfectionism or pressure?

Mike: I would say it's all the fault of our being perfectionists, since in recent years we have recorded a huge amount of tracks to stop only when the record seemed to us to finally sound complete. We don't like working with deadlines, we think it's bad for our music; so we felt apaggerated by the results. The only pressures came from ourselves: when we are focused on work, it is difficult for us to even imagine that anyone other than us could hear the things we are recording.

Music has the right to children has had a side effect, the birth of a new fashion: organic electronics. What do you think?

Marcus: It is far from a bad thing, I think, if it serves to convey the idea that you can make dirty and irregular use of electronics, or to create music that is not simply meant to make you dance. We get a lot of music from new artists and we love to hear everything, some of these things are nothing short of great. but it is also true that by now we are starting to choose this direction, perhaps more concerned with obtaining a harmless imitation of fashionable sounds, than with favoring melodies. Indeed, i would say that most of these productions are really lacking in terms of melody, which for us remains the most important element to search for.

What discs did you listen to while making Geogaddi?

Mike: In the last couple of years we have mostly been passionate about melodic and super-smart hip-hop from Clouddead and Anticon bands. Dose one is a friend and we often talk about making a record together. We also listened to a lot of material from labels such as western vinyl and temporary Residence Limited, specialized in groups with a minimal and poetic guitar sound, I think of Sonna, Tarentel, Bonny Billy. And then there is an absolutely incredible group, called Aspera, and they look like a psychedelic rock band from the 60s transported to the 80s. Aside from that, we've dusted off older records, like those by Joni Mitchell and Scott Walter. As long as it was always minimal, psychedelic music, with some dreamy guitars.

Your records never lack references to childhood and nature. Can we define at as an intimate nostalgia or as the desire to recover a lost innocence?

Mike: I think, as adults, we feel that we have lost forever that typically childish stupor, which we try to find even if only temporarily in our music. Childhood is a transitory and ephemeral space in everyone's life: even your brothers or sisters you will know them for much longer as adults than as children; therefore it is as if those children you knew have been lost somewhere and replaced with adult beings. We try to create music that even briefly manages to tune in to the place where those children have ended up and we can faintly pick up their sounds, disturbed by interference.

Your songs manage to function at multiple listening levels. How are they built?

Marcus: Usually it's the melody that comes first, and then we add a rhythmic structure to that, even if sometimes the process has been reversed. In any case, the next step is to 'imagine' the details of the song and then hide and mix them in the music.

Rumours are persistent that you would use subliminal messages. Only rumours or do you believe in the possibility of manipulating the minds of those who listen to you?

Marcus: If you are in the position where your records end up in the hands of thousands of people who will listen repeatedly, at some point it makes you think 'What could we do with this song? We could experiment with this one...'. So, we tried to add elements that were other than the music. Sometimes we include voices to see if they triggered associations of ideas, and other times we also designed the structure of the some pieces according to rules that were not consciously recognizable. On Geogaddi, for example The Devil Is In The Details has a riff that re-proposes an equation in music. It may not mean much to anyone, but I find it interesting just to try.


final part later today. :wink:
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You're wasting your time. The internet is going down.If you want to do something useful, print out physical copies because this is all to be lost I'm afraid :(

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Awww, so Chris was the one to come up with the whole Hexagon sun theme. Then I guess the label promoted the idea of the classic electronic double act? Then bye bye Chris?

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Then to remove his name on the re pressings of Twoism seems a bit insulting.. He either played a part in the creation of that record or he didn't?

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Thanks, Orbited!!

Sl Flk wrote:Then to remove his name on the re pressings of Twoism seems a bit insulting.. He either played a part in the creation of that record or he didn't?

I've always been confused at his inclusion and exclusion from re-pressings too.

Please don't triple post, by the way. ;)
PLEASE LISTEN TO MY QUEER ELECTRONIC POP MUSIC: 2020k.Bandcamp |Twenty20k.com

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Sl Flk wrote:You're wasting your time. The internet is going down.If you want to do something useful, print out physical copies because this is all to be lost I'm afraid :(


By the the time of the release of TH, when all those new interviews were coming in, I just moved in to a new place and there wasn't any internet provider. So I was printing them and reading later. Had those on paper. Many from TH, some from Geo and TCH. Can't find them now, tho.
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Cheers 2020k! :D

The final part of 'I Colori Dela Musica Elettronica' (Italian to English Translation)

Then admit that one of your secret weapons is the use of fibonacci numbers.

Mike: No, we happen to do this from time to time. The Fibonacci series, used by other artists in painting or architecture, is just one of the equations we used to write melodies, also because it occurs very often in nature, from fern leaves to snail shells. But despite the fact that some melodies are based on mathematical principles and equations, much more often our way of composing is traditional and is inspired by our imagination.

The finale of Music has the right to children insinuated that there was something on the record that could be censored. What was it about?

Marcus: It was just a funny way of saying something serious about censorship. We like to experiment and see to what extent voices and messages can be camouflaged so that it would be very difficult for any censors to prove their thesis. Freedom of expression is a matter of great concern.

Geogaddi bears next to the Warp brand that of Music70, which is also your film production house. Will the disc have a video accompaniment then?

Mike: There is the possibility that a couple of songs, perhaps in a different version from the one they appear on the record, become the backbone of a short film. But we are currently working on other visual projects as well. We will see.

Side (p.26)

The Boards of Canada are another example of that stylistic confluence that took 1990s electronics far beyond the confines of the dance floor...
...but it is not about dance music that has sought an expressive means to broaden the catchment area beyond the lovers of the track. The roots of the Boards of Canada immediately appear more intellectual and sophisticated than those of the house and techno groups that dominated the early twentieth century clubs. The label that publishes their debut album is Warp: inevitably the first obligatory reference is precisely the typical style of the label, the famous one intelligent techno (a rather unfortunate neologism, ultimately) which at the beginning of the decade decisively marked English electronics and will leave to posterity memorable works of Black dog, LFO and Nightmares On Wax, to name only the most famous names. The Warp in the second half of the 90s, however, is no longer avant-garde as in the previous decade. It's top names have not had a replacement sufficient and even champions like Autechre (in many ways the most evident reference for BOCs) they begin to have some difficulty in renewing themselves. The Sheffield label are starting to have some difficulties in renewing. The Sheffield label then begins precisely with the Boards of Canada that stylistic revision process 'that will lead it, in 2001, to make them even record the debuts of Vincent Gallo or Prefuse 73. And here comes the point about the Boards' music of Canada. It is no longer just techno, which doesn't seem so obvious at first glance, but which will constitute the future importance of "Music Has The Right To Children".
The roots and sounds are electronic, yes, but somehow a more open context emerges, where the sound seems to expand in space - and not in a circular time marked by rhythmic iteratively. More than a groove, there is a dilated and broader dimension that is sometimes not dissimilar from that put in place by many post rock groups; so much so that even the public normally more interested in indie rock than in dance proposals end up seeing elements of interest in that music. It happens that the electronic beat was fundamental, even when the approach is to restructure it according to objectives that go beyond the dancefloor: see the case of trip hop, which slows down and makes dryness and minimalism explicitly musical. Hip hop. The Boards of Canada, on the contrary, began to use techniques and sound modes that are normally the prerogative of the samplers and sequencers to create abstract, spatial, almost surreal atmospheres - and not for structured around the rhythm, which, however complex and articulated, is never the main conductor of the music, on the contrary full of dreamy keyboards, melodic suggestions, suspended atmospheres. So electronic, yes, but certainly more the one that binds krout rock to the ambient of the late 80s, rather than that of the house generation. "Music Has The Right To Children" is an imperfect record, still in suspense between a continuity with the techno of the early 90s and it's subsequent evolution; but it remains of great importance in end-of-the-millennium electronics, almost comparable to that of Air's "Moon Safari", also from 1998. In records like that there are the roots of the sound we defined easytronica a few months ago: the evolution of the new downtempo, increasingly disconnected from the rhythmic imposition of hip hop, melodically strong, rich in psychedelic atmospheres and of great suggestion. For the Boards of Canada, it is time to confirm themselves as an adult group of twentieth century electronics.
Bizarre.
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Just dropping to say thanks to everyone involved for all the effort that has gone into the bocpages interview archive. I really pored over them in 2010 or so when I was at the peak of my obsession and I've been checking back for updates or to look up some half-remembered quote or other ever since.

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New interview added: https://bocpages.org/wiki/Death_Under_The_Sun
"Death Under The Sun" is an interview (in Russian) by Phil Canning (Translated by Miloslav Chemodanov) originally published April 2006, in Play magazine No. 04 (83).

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Good Work!
Complete Kilchurn Sessions

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Fredd-E wrote:New interview added: https://bocpages.org/wiki/Death_Under_The_Sun
"Death Under The Sun" is an interview (in Russian) by Phil Canning (Translated by Miloslav Chemodanov) originally published April 2006, in Play magazine No. 04 (83).

I noticed Google translate picked up the Г, H, and p as the Russian G, N, and r in "The Campfire Headphase" :lol:
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In here is a tragedy, art thou player or audience?
Be as it may, the end doth remain:
all go on only toward death.
...
There is nothing which cannot become a puppet of fate
or an onlooker, peering into the cage.

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This devoted Branch Davidian translated a german Geogaddi era interview over on Reddit. :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/ycpk00/the_square_circle_translation_of_geogaddi_era/

The bocpages link for the interview, with the translation now edited in by Fredd-E.
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Orbited insanitarium wrote:This devoted Branch Davidian translated a german Geogaddi era interview over on Reddit. :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/ycpk00/the_square_circle_translation_of_geogaddi_era/

The bocpages link for the interview, with the translation now edited in by Fredd-E.

Thanks. I just finished the wiki article (had to include wiki links etc.). It's all good now.

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I updated the public google sheets file. https://bocpages.org/extra/sheets/

There are three tabs visible:
  • Timeline (part of https://bocpages.org/wiki/Timeline)
  • Interviews (status overview of all interviews with regards to scans, transcription and translation)
  • Interviews-translation (this shows the missing translations)
Image

The screenshot above shows 26 uploaded interviews with either missing (16) or wonky (10) translations.

We're in need of translators capable of Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. I have the last one, in Dutch, on my todo list.

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I'm Swedish, but understand Danish pretty well. Could do that one.

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I will take on the French stuff, been practising it for 53 years now
Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff.

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