Your controversial BoC opinions.

[Echelon]

My controversial opinion is BOC love their fans, but they're just very busy with life and they've been doing other things for the last 10 years alongside recording. BOC is their side project and isn't a steady job. The reason it isn't their main job is because they are very precise with their catalog and wouldn't want to add any missteps to it. That's why they took eight years to respond to the criticism of TCH (which I genuinely think is a stellar album but the critical consensus is that it's good but not great)

But going by the words of MDG, PIC and Bleep, I think there's been subtle hints that our patience will be rewarded when the time comes.

[funnnnpng]

My controversial opinion is BOC love their fans, but they're just very busy with life and they've been doing other things for the last 10 years alongside recording. BOC is their side project and isn't a steady job. The reason it isn't their main job is because they are very precise with their catalog and wouldn't want to add any missteps to it. That's why they took eight years to respond to the criticism of TCH (which I genuinely think is a stellar album but the critical consensus is that it's good but not great)

But going by the words of MDG, PIC and Bleep, I think there's been subtle hints that our patience will be rewarded when the time comes.

I think any great artist is lambasted for hating their fans at a certain point when they aren't pumping out music every 2-3 years. I personally sort of hate the 2 year album cycle and you can see it throw a lot of artists who can't operate on that schedule into continuous loops of mediocrity for the rest of their career because they're never given space. BoC just don't work like that. Every album is meant to stand on its own, and I'm glad we have it that way. New music will come, it's sooner than ever now, and it will more than likely be fantastic. We all just have to relax.

[arvy]

Space album would suck. Usually it is a theme for geeks and weirdos. More conspiracy music like 1969, Dawn Chorus, Over The Horizon Radar, Chinook, Telepath

I overflowman

[tonx]

Odd Nosdam’s Sisters is a really great album and the BOC remix on it is maybe my least favorite track there and maybe the only time a BOC remix didn’t make a song better.

[Echelon]

Odd Nosdam’s Sisters is a really great album and the BOC remix on it is maybe my least favorite track there and maybe the only time a BOC remix didn’t make a song better.

It was weirdly released very close to Mr. Mistake which was another show stopper release. It almost felt like a bonus remix to say "We're alive and gonna be more active again"

It's definitely my least favorite too though

[steeldancer-x]

Love BoC to death, we gotta stop suckin they dick and start holding them accountable, whatever the hell that means

[qukk_]

Love BoC to death, we gotta stop suckin they dick and start holding them accountable, whatever the hell that means

Accountable for what?

[steeldancer-x]

Accountable for what?

Can we all agree that we feel a little left behind? Whether we have been or haven't.

Love them, but it's getting more and more difficult not to feel like they're playing into all of their bullshit at this point. Sure, sure, muh mythos n all. But man shouldn't mythologize himself.

We need to get real about them. They used to at least say hi every now and again. Now half of the time it feels like everyone around here wants to literally stalk and put them on this pedestal because they haven't shown their faces or said something for so long (maybe it is just me but for god's sake that's so creepy, on their side and ours of the coin).

It's a question we've gotta ask ourselves. This is all my own opinion from where I've been and seen so far. Do you blindly agree with every single little thing they've done these past 20+ years and give it the thumbs-up? It's okay to say no, concerning to say yes.

[qukk_]

Accountable for what?

Can we all agree that we feel a little left behind? Whether we have been or haven't.

Love them, but it's getting more and more difficult not to feel like they're playing into all of their bullshit at this point. Sure, sure, muh mythos n all. But man shouldn't mythologize himself.

We need to get real about them. They used to at least say hi every now and again. Now half of the time it feels like everyone around here wants to literally stalk and put them on this pedestal because they haven't shown their faces or said something for so long (maybe it is just me but for god's sake that's so creepy, on their side and ours of the coin).

It's a question we've gotta ask ourselves. This is all my own opinion from where I've been and seen so far. Do you blindly agree with every single little thing they've done these past 20+ years and give it the thumbs-up? It's okay to say no, concerning to say yes.

Think of it this way: They have the final say in what gets released and published. They don’t have to release or publish anything (the fact that we have as much material as we do is a miracle.) Remember, this is their art, not ours, and we shouldn’t feel betrayed by them just because they’re not outputing as much as we want them to. They are notorious perfectionists and they take their time, most people are well aware of that at this point.

It will come. We know at the very least that they have multiple projects going on and for this next release, I’m sure that they want it to be as good as they can possible make it.

[hexagonFox]

Think of it this way: They have the final say in what gets released and published. They don’t have to release or publish anything (the fact that we have as much material as we do is a miracle.) Remember, this is their art, not ours, and we shouldn’t feel betrayed by them just because they’re not outputing as much as we want them to. They are notorious perfectionists and they take their time, most people are well aware of that at this point.

It will come. We know at the very least that they have multiple projects going on and for this next release, I’m sure that they want it to be as good as they can possible make it.

100%

[Echelon]

Accountable for what?

Can we all agree that we feel a little left behind? Whether we have been or haven't.

Love them, but it's getting more and more difficult not to feel like they're playing into all of their bullshit at this point. Sure, sure, muh mythos n all. But man shouldn't mythologize himself.

We need to get real about them. They used to at least say hi every now and again. Now half of the time it feels like everyone around here wants to literally stalk and put them on this pedestal because they haven't shown their faces or said something for so long (maybe it is just me but for god's sake that's so creepy, on their side and ours of the coin).

It's a question we've gotta ask ourselves. This is all my own opinion from where I've been and seen so far. Do you blindly agree with every single little thing they've done these past 20+ years and give it the thumbs-up? It's okay to say no, concerning to say yes.

Is the point of this post to say that they're purposely being mysterious and secretive and that's creating a toxic environment here? And you want them to stop being so secretive?

Honestly, I'm here for the music. They're my favorite artists so I naturally want more. Speculating about when it drops is very fun. Could care less about them personally though I am curious if Marcus or Mike is bald now haha

In terms of mysterious behavior,
I think the Twitter likes are harmless and I love when they posted the Pioneers Plaque because it was like the nuclear banner for TH.


The only thing I could do without is the other social media shenanigans where it seems like them or whoever manages the accounts seems to just see if they can get a reaction by changing something or linking to a weird video on semi official accounts and then deleting it. I just don't like that because it gets my hopes up that music will drop when it doesn't. If it's a commentary on misinformation and the dangers of the internet, than it does work though.

Just my two cents on this post.

[steeldancer-x]

Is the point of this post to say that they're purposely being mysterious and secretive and that's creating a toxic environment here? And you want them to stop being so secretive?

Honestly, I'm here for the music. They're my favorite artists so I naturally want more. Speculating about when it drops is very fun. Could care less about them personally though I am curious if Marcus or Mike is bald now haha

In terms of mysterious behavior,
I think the Twitter likes are harmless and I love when they posted the Pioneers Plaque because it was like the nuclear banner for TH.


The only thing I could do without is the other social media shenanigans where it seems like them or whoever manages the accounts seems to just see if they can get a reaction by changing something or linking to a weird video on semi official accounts and then deleting it. I just don't like that because it gets my hopes up that music will drop when it doesn't. If it's a commentary on misinformation and the dangers of the internet, than it does work though.

Just my two cents on this post.

Not trying to say I have a problem with what/how they do. If anything, keep it up. Keeps things interesting. My bad if I didn't quite explain it correctly.

I do not want to feed into any type of ego anymore. Ours, theirs, whoever's. And everyone else shouldn't either. Ideas are not toys.

[Radiobuzz]

Not a controversial boc opinion but I don't want to create a new thread. I was reading "The Last secret of Pop" interview (here), and a line goes:

Mike is Michael Sandison, 34 years old, father of a one year old daughter. Visibly tired. Suffers sleeplessness and depression.

Is this a translation thing or is/was he medically depressed? Has he ever shared that in any interview?

[luminousdusk]

Not heard anything about the depression before, actually don't recall reading that at all until now. I suppose it's more uncommon these days not to be depressed and sleepless.. The two go hand in hand. Research suggests that if you are depressed and have trouble sleeping and waken frequently then you should just stay awake and although you are technically depriving yourself of sleep, the symptoms of depression can lessen over time by doing this

[Echelon]

My controversial opinion is I wish BOC would throw us a small bone like telling us what those missing tracks are on Societas or giving us another remix so we don't fight with each other until the album finally drops. It would be nice just to have a minor tidbit to talk about since now I'm feeling this album is gonna be next year or later.

So how about it bros? Got anything you can tide us over with?

[adecentman]

Not a controversial boc opinion but I don't want to create a new thread. I was reading "The Last secret of Pop" interview (here), and a line goes:

Mike is Michael Sandison, 34 years old, father of a one year old daughter. Visibly tired. Suffers sleeplessness and depression.

Is this a translation thing or is/was he medically depressed? Has he ever shared that in any interview?

I've been thinking about making a thread specifically related to the connection between BoC and depression, and then this interview pops up. Somehow I'd never read this one before, and the parts about depression are definitely interesting. At a different point he also says this:

"If I'm depressed... and I've got a long history of depression", Mike lets on, "then I always look for comfort in my childhood years. That sadness is always present in our music."

While talking with a therapist on the subject of depression & anxiety, she mentioned something along the lines of: the nature of depression is thinking too heavily of the past, and the nature of anxiety is thinking too heavily of the future. So of course my mind goes to BoC, music that's moving things forward by looking backwards in time & through their own personal histories. And perhaps that's their way of processing the past – But it is interesting to read that Mike deals with depression, which in this light seems to make perfect sense.

It also makes me wonder about depression in the BoC community in general, and if there's an increased propensity towards depression in our lil' subculture because of our interest in music & art that has a certain focus on 'looking backwards'. I feel like you see a similar amount of depression in the OPN/vapor spheres, another world of music very much oriented in looking forward by looking backward.

My apologies for the off-topic post, just seemed tangentially related. I guess my controversial BoC opinion is that Tomorrow's Harvest sounds a bit too 'clean'. Still dig it though

[Mond]

Not controversial but there won't ever be anything comparable to Boards of Canada again. The social order their music evokes is a distant memory, since the collapse of the Post-war consensus and Keynesianism.

[Mond]

Boards of Canada eschew the tedious recreational drugs aspect of electronic music. There's nothing worse than hearing some juvenile claiming they listened to this or that electronic album while on acid (always acid). It's this drug culture which put me off electronic music for so long.

[NTFMTS]

I can understand that if you're put off by that stuff, but the brothers refer to using psychedelics and explore psychedelic elements in their music. In a broader sense of it, "drug culture" had an enormous influence on music from the 50s-80s and is still in much music. I'm not a Greatful Deadhead but their influence and practice informed a gigantic shift in musical culture, of which I see in BoC and other bands where you'd never really expect it

I'm referring to this book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America which is a fascinating read

[Antares]

I can understand that if you're put off by that stuff, but the brothers refer to using psychedelics and explore psychedelic elements in their music. In a broader sense of it, "drug culture" had an enormous influence on music from the 50s-80s and is still in much music. I'm not a Greatful Deadhead but their influence and practice informed a gigantic shift in musical culture, of which I see in BoC and other bands where you'd never really expect it

I'm referring to this book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America which is a fascinating read

Yeah, Mond's comment is bizarre. If anything, BoC are one of the IDM groups that has most explicitly and publicly embraced and acknowledged the role psychedelics has played in their work, even if they don't adhere to an outdated hippie stereotype of what that means. Can't think of any direct quotes right now, but off the top of my head, I know they've mentioned The Campfire Headphase being inspired by the experience of an LSD trip. They put out an EP called Acid Memories, for crying out loud.